


Doll Parts

by godisthedice, tessisamess



Category: Child's Play/Chucky (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dark Comedy, F/M, Graphic Description of Corpses, Horror, Mary Sue Big Bang, Mental Health Issues, Minor Character Death, References to Sexual Assault, Roleplay Logs, Romance, Substance Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-13
Updated: 2015-11-13
Packaged: 2018-05-01 06:41:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 44,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5195990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/godisthedice/pseuds/godisthedice, https://archiveofourown.org/users/tessisamess/pseuds/tessisamess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What do you do when you're six years old and your doll's possessed by a serial killer's soul? Let him make friends with your babysitter, of course! That should definitely keep him out of trouble. Too bad the sitter's a serial killer too. Buckle up, kids. It's gonna be one hell of a ride.</p><p>Doll Parts is a rewrite of the first Child's Play movie, shifting the year to 1991 and asking the question: What if Andy's babysitter hadn't been quite so... <i>normal?</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Doll Parts

**Author's Note:**

> Please check out the great mix our wonderful artist, raving-liberal, created for us [on her journal](http://raving-liberal.livejournal.com/1013696.html)! <3 You can also check out the music we lived on while writing [here](http://badsitter.insanejournal.com/1411.html)! Cover art by tessisamess.
> 
> A note on warnings: This story isn't quite as depraved as the warnings make it sound, though they all apply, even if it's only in passing. Still, this story probably isn't for people who aren't horror fans or who dislike reading about shitty people doing shitty things to get what they want.

## 001\. DON'T TELL MOMMY

"You be good for Aubrey, okay sweetie? Mommy has to work late, so I'll see you in the morning."

"Okay, Mommy," Andy said in his usual sweet murmur as Karen kissed him on the forehead.

"You're sure you don't mind staying so late?" she asked the sitter as she got to her feet.

"It's cool, Miss B," Aubrey assured, setting her maroon backpack on the kitchen counter. "Just working on my Econ homework; I'll be up all night anyway." She was a college student who lived two floors below them, young and pretty with angular features and a thin, willowy frame. Andy loved her and she worked for half the price of the daycares in the area, so it was a match made in heaven as far as Karen was concerned—especially with the added bonus of no one having to drive anywhere.

After Karen left for work and Andy had finished eating he grinned excitedly as Aubrey pulled down the rest of his birthday cake from the top of the fridge so he could have another slice for dessert. "Okay, birthday boy. You wanna big slice or a little one?"

"A big one!" Andy laughed. "Oh, wait!" he gasped. "I didn't show you what Mommy got me!"

"No, you didn't! What did you get for your birthday?" Aubrey asked, but Andy was already racing out of the room, the rubber soled feet of his Good Guy pajamas padding against the floor quietly. When he came back he was lugging a doll that was almost as big as he was, dressed in the same stripes and overalls as Andy. It was one of those new Good Guy dolls. The kid was obsessed with that show (which Aubrey was pretty sure was the most annoying fucking thing on TV) so she figured Karen had made his year with the kind-of-creepy doll.

"Well, would you look at that," she said with a small, indulgent smile, setting his plate down at his seat at the table.

"This is Chucky!" he told her. "He's my friend to the end! This is Aubrey, she's my babysitter and she's really nice. Say hi!"

She could hear the parts in the doll moving when it blinked and its chin started moving up and down to simulate talking. "Hi," the prerecorded voice said cheerfully. "I'm Chucky! Wanna play?"

"Maybe later, Chuck," Aubrey snorted. "Pretty rad, little man. Good score. The only problem is..."

"What?" Andy asked, looking worried.

"Well, now _my_ present looks lame, so maybe I shouldn't give it to you," she teased.

"No!" he was quick to plead. "I bet it's really great, it's okay!"

When Aubrey handed over the thin present—something appropriate for her budget and the role she played in his life—Andy was gracious enough to pretend to be smitten with the two Good Guy storybooks she'd gotten him. That was just the sort of kid he was. Aubrey wasn't generally much of a kid person—they tended to all be loud, sticky assholes—but Andy was special. He was so well behaved and genuinely sweet to everyone that he'd even managed to win _her_ over—to the point where she saw him at least four days a week, no less.

"C'mon, peanut. Eat your cake before you run out of time."

*

"Aubrey…? Chucky wants to watch the 9 o'clock news," Andy said, all wide eyes and innocence as he looked up at Aubrey from over the top of the doll's head.

"That right?" she asked, looking up from her textbook, glancing at the TV where the news was getting ready to start. She managed not to laugh at how slick he thought he was being.

"Yeah," he said, nodding gravely.

"Well," Aubrey sighed, sitting up from her seat on the couch. "Tell you what: Chucky can watch the news, but _you_ have to get your little butt in bed."

Rather than changing his mind like she'd thought he would once a wrench was thrown into his plans, Andy just smiled and nodded eagerly. "Okay! You sit here, Chucky," he told the doll, setting it on the ottoman facing the TV. He gave it a kiss on the cheek and a hug. "Goodnight, Chucky. I love you!"

"Brush your teeth?"

"Yep!"

"Alright, let's get you tucked in."

*

After the news—some story about a guy escaping from a police van during transportation to a holding facility—Aubrey turned the TV down and settled in to try and get her work done. The resources were there, but the motivation was... really not. Her first year of college had been typical. Now that she was into her junior year, though, it was a struggle to even care about being there. On the surface that probably seemed par for the course. It wasn't.

After an hour she just cut her losses and tossed her Econ book onto the coffee table, dragging her nails through her hair as she let out a frustrated noise. "You're too young for a midlife crisis, dude," she muttered to herself. she glanced at Andy's new plastic best friend and reached over to pick the doll up, looking it over quietly.

"Y'know, Chuck, it's nothing personal, but I have to tell you: I _really_ hate your show. Sorry, man. All that caring-and-friendship shit's just kind of revolting." Playing with a six year old's toys. This was a new low for Aubrey's procrastination. It really was.

The _waiting_ had been the worst part. Waiting in the store until he was shoved back into the box. Waiting in the cart. Waiting for that bitch to bring him home to her kid so that he could get out of the box again. Chuck wasn't a patient guy even when he was in his own body. Being stuck in a fucking doll didn't help him feel better about it, either.

So far, the kid wasn't so bad. Andy had believed him when he said no one would believe that Chucky was alive, had kept his mouth shut about it so far. He was a good listener, too. Followed directions well. Chuck liked that in a kid, meant that Andy would do whatever he wanted without questioning him. He'd worked with worse, like that traitor Eddie. Chuck wasn't sure how he was going to make it happen, with a plastic body and an accomplice that probably couldn't even tie his own shoes yet, but he was going to get back at Eddie, whatever he had to do.

If there was one thing Chuck could change about Andy, though, it would be the way the kid dragged him around. Sure, he was easy enough to manipulate, but was it so much to ask for someone who was big enough that he could grab Chuck in a way that wasn't around his neck, and didn't knock him against anything. Bigger kids, though, they were brats. They wouldn't listen as well as Andy had, and they wanted more than some pre-recorded message about love and hugs. 

So far, the mom seemed like a real boring bitch. That didn't matter, as long as she wasn't trying to get in Chuck's way. If she always worked so much, she wouldn't even be around to notice what her kid was doing. That was a lucky find, too. Just came home from work, and she was already turning the kid over to a babysitter, from what he could hear from Andy's room. Then he was being dragged out and displayed all over again, this time to some skinny girl. The babysitter. Andy told him to say hi, and Chuck gave her one of the messages she'd expect to hear from the doll. It made him want to roll his eyes. He did roll his eyes, as soon as the kid and the babysitter weren't paying attention to him anymore, distracted by the kid's new books (and aw, wasn't that sweet, he thought he might puke). 

Skinny bitch didn't seem bad so far, either. As long as she stayed out of Chuck's way.

*

It wasn't hard to play innocent toy. Chuck kept his eyes on the kid, mostly, but he wasn't really paying attention. He had a lot of plans to make, and a kid playing with a fake hammer wasn't actually interesting, at all. Mostly, he was busy in his own head, might as well not have even been there… until he heard his name on the television.

Chuck turned his head, hoping to catch the details of what happened, but apparently they weren't going to give the details until nine o'clock. It wasn't too long to wait, and the kid was calling for his attention again, so to keep up the act of being a plain toy, he had to turn back, even though the anger was buzzing under his skin already. He needed to know what had happened. He needed to know what had happened to Eddie, so that he knew what he'd have to do to get back at that little pussy. Nine o'clock was the longest he could wait for that.

The kid tugged him close again, and Chuck hissed in his ear, "You tell her that we're going to watch the nine o'clock news." If he had to wait, he was going to murder someone. Probably the skinny bitch. He needed the kid, and besides, Chuck didn't kill kids unless he had to. They weren't even a challenge, and if there was no reason… kid killers were the devil in the pen. No matter what, Chuck hadn't wanted _that_ on his record, he wouldn't have lasted a day. Hell, he hadn't lasted anyway.

Chuck was almost surprised when the skinny bitch… Aubrey, she'd earned him remembering her name if she wasn't going to be a pain in the ass… agreed, as long as Andy went to bed. He was ready for her to change the channel as soon as the kid was tucked in, or shut the television off completely, but instead she left him sitting right there on the ottoman, where he could watch all of the details unfold.

*

Eddie had gotten out, and Chuck knew exactly where to find him. It depended on how much freedom the kid would have the next day, if there was a chance for him to slip away with Chuck, but he thought he could catch Eddie no problem. He knew all the places the little weasel would go to stay safe, and with him thinking that Chuck was dead, he wouldn't think there was any reason to find new ones to go to ground, the traitor. It all depended on the kid, didn't it? Chuck really needed a better accomplice.

He hadn't expected the babysitter to pick him up while he thought, and he held still, played dumb toy for her, too. Then she started talking to him, and he wanted to snort. Yeah, he hadn't seen much of the show, not yet, though he didn't doubt that with the kid obsessed with it there wasn't going to be much choice. Just from the messages recording in the doll's voice box, though, and the books that she'd given the kid, he had to agree with her on that one. It was pretty revolting.

Of course, he couldn't agree with her out loud, no matter how much it would have been nice to have some adult conversation instead of the kid. Kids just didn't understand grown up things like revenge, and why caring-and-friendship was something that you didn't believe in once you hit your teens. Yeah, it was revolting. Chuck just had to work with what he had.

Andy had left the doll in the living room with her again. He was usually attached to the thing at the hip, so it sort of struck her as odd that he didn't insist on sleeping with it too, but Aubrey didn't think too much of it. Kids made no sense. The sooner you accepted that, the sooner your life got easier.

It was just kind of funny that he kept saying it was because Chucky wanted to watch the news, of all things. Kids didn't care about the news. Again, though, it didn't really cross her mind for more than a moment or two.

She stretched her legs out, scraping the last of her yogurt from the bottom of the cup with her spoon as she watched the story that was playing on the news; a follow up on the Charles Lee Ray story. Aubrey didn't really know what there was to follow up on. He'd gotten gunned down; that was pretty much all there was to say at this point, wasn't it?

"Cute, though," Aubrey muttered to herself when they displayed Ray's mugshot for the second time. Which was probably a fucked up thing to say, considering he'd murdered a bunch of people—but in her defense everyone had always pointed out how attractive Bundy was too, and that guy was _way_ more fucked up.

She got up to throw her trash away and put her spoon in the sink, huffing a low noise when she sat back down with her books. "Wanna do my work for me, Chuck?" she asked sarcastically. "Yeah... me neither."

Failing the class was a very real possibility. She just wished she cared more that it was probably going to happen.

"Wanna tell me what the fuck's wrong with me?" she sighed, leaning her head against the back of the couch. Aubrey stared at the ceiling for a second before closing her eyes, listening to the static hum in her brain, drowning out the post-news commercials.

*

"Chucky wants to sit out here with you tonight," Andy told her.

"Again?" Aubrey asked. The TV wasn't even on tonight. "He sure does like the news."

"He didn't say he wanted to watch the news tonight," he informed her, looking down at Chucky as if he wanted to make sure he was right. The doll, of course, didn't respond.

"Well, if he really wants to sit out here that's fine." What did it hurt, right? The kid was so sweet he probably just wanted her to have company after he went to sleep. "Brush your teeth?"

"Yep!"

*

The number of problems that came with being stuck with a kid for an accomplice just kept growing. Newest addition? Someone was always watching a kid. There'd been a moment, after Andy's mom had pulled away after dropping him off at school, that Chuck thought he could get away. Andy had hitched him up in his arms, he'd whispered which way to go, and the little trooper had started right off down the sidewalk, ready to trust his friend ‘til the end.

Then _she'd_ come. Not Andy's regular teacher, he'd found that out soon enough, just some bitch on bus duty. She'd rushed out the double doors, laid a hand on Andy's shoulder, told him "No, sweetie, remember, we go to our classes first, not the playground." Like Andy was some kind of simpleton who had forgotten what order the school day went in.

Then again, he'd let his doll talk him into ditching school and hiding the bus to an unfamiliar part of the city. She might have a point about the kid.

Her hand had been on Andy's shoulder, right there where Chuck could have sunk his teeth into it. He almost did, and then he and Andy would have been free to go track down that rat bastard's hiding spot and take care of him. If he did that, though, everyone would know that there was something wrong with Andy's doll. It pissed him off, but it was better to stay under the radar, at least for the time being.

School was boring, and Chuck had been stuck in the kid's cubby most of the day, staring out at the classroom and going out of his mind. The only time Andy could take him down was for playtime, and to cuddle at story time, and even then Chuck couldn't _do_ anything about it, now could he? If Andy hadn't even been able to slip away before he'd set foot in the school, there was no way he could take his doll and leave the building without someone noticing. Chuck had waited, and tried to come up with a plan B.

At least Andy's babysitter still wasn't going to argue about letting the kid's toy watch the news.

## 002\. THE KILLING TYPE

Kid problem number fifteen was that the little bastards talked, all the time. If he'd been talking about something that Chuck found even a little bit interesting, he might have been okay with it, but who the fuck cared about a kid's idea of what was important? Nobody but a parent, probably, and Chuck was going to go ahead and say it wasn't even them. Andy was happy to babble on about nothing, about exactly what he was doing every moment of every day, and act out scenes from the idiotic show that Chuck's new body came from. By the end of the first time, he was pretty sure that Aubrey had been generous with her opinion of how annoying it was.

By the end of the day, Chuck was dying for a little bit of adult conversation. He couldn't exactly talk back, but when it was about the kid's bedtime, Chuck whispered to him, "Leave me out here with her." Otherwise, the kid would baby babble at him once they were tucked into bed, until he passed out. And Chuck really wasn't big on sharing a bed with a little kid, no matter what. He wasn't that way. He wasn't some kind of pedo freak who would enjoy that.

Sweet, innocent, gullible little Andy, he listened so well. He repeated Chuck's request to the babysitter, and Aubrey went along with it. Settled down in his usual spot for the night, Chuck turned his head to her and blinked, waiting for her to say something, _anything_ , that would make him forget how fucking inane kids could be.

Aubrey glanced up when she heard the doll's head move, looking at it over the top of her textbook. "What, you bored?" she asked, as if she actually expected it to answer. Hey, it watched the _news_ ; it could be bored (yeah right.)

It was always so quiet in the apartment at night. Usually, Aubrey liked the quiet, but the quiet that came from taking care not to wake a six year old was different. More restrictive, somehow. Couple that with the fact that her eyes kept glazing over when she tried to read, and that half of what was on TV was crap anyway so she hadn't bothered with it, and was it really so weird that she was having a conversation with a toy?

"I think I'm gonna drop this class. I can't deal with it," she told the doll. Sometimes she thought about dropping all of them. "I just don't care, you know? I don't fucking care about any of this shit."

There. She'd said it.

"God... I don't fucking _care_ ," Aubrey said again, letting her book drop to the floor when she abandoned it in favor of sitting up, crossing her legs under herself. "I know that sounds like... literally every other person my age," she added with an unamused laugh. "But it's like—

 _Fuck_..." Aubrey raked her fingers through her hair, holding and squeezing for a second before letting go of the strands between her fingers. "I think something's wrong. I think I'm sick."

She didn't really have friends. She almost never went out when people tried to invite her to do things. She'd dated one dude in the past three years, and that had been more to pass the time than anything, and it had gotten annoying fast. She didn't give a shit about him and, when she broke up with him, she didn't actually care.

"I feel like I'm losing it, and who am I gonna tell—the fucking _six-year-old_?" Aubrey snorted. Right. Hey, Andy! Your babysitter might be a total lunatic! Wanna go to the park?

"It's just like... there's this goddamn white noise, you know? In the back of my head. It's this itching in my skin that won't fucking go away; I feel like I'm gonna start ripping myself to shreds if I don't—if I don't—"

Aubrey's long legs unfolded like a spider when she crawled down from the couch to the floor, staring at the doll's glassy eyes. If she didn't tell someone she felt like she was going to end up jumping off the roof.

"This is so not normal," she whispered. "I get so fucking mad—over _nothing—all_ the time—and the only thing I want to do is kill every last motherfucking person near me just to watch them _goddamn die_."

Saying it out loud was both the best and worst thing Aubrey had ever felt. She didn't know if it was relief or a sort of distanced horror over the truth about herself that made the tip of her nose go red as she let out a quiet sob.

"I don't think I can hold onto it anymore," she confessed quietly. "And the worst part is I don't think I'll even care."

No matter what, everything that Aubrey had to say was more interesting than what Andy had to say, even when she started out sounding like a whiny kid, herself. Boohoo, classes were hard, she didn't care, she couldn't handle the stress… suck it up or find a husband, baby doll. No one liked a drama queen, and he was pretty sure that this college girl had never met a real lunatic, if she thought she was one.

It wasn't until she started talking about the noise, unfolding herself from the couch and coming toward him, that Chuck realized that hey, maybe this was a little more interesting than your usual college girl problems, after all. This sounded… familiar. This sounded like something that Chuck could relate to, and if he could have, he'd have been leaning forward, eagerly. He didn't take his eyes off of her, didn't move his mouth out of its insipid little smile, barely even blinked. Oh, yeah, this was good. This was really good.

If he'd been talking, Chuck could have told her all about how he felt the exact same way, most of the time. He could have told her how good it was to finally just do it, to watch the life fading out of someone's eyes as you killed them. How it took care of that, for a little while, until it started getting bad again, and then you were looking for your next victim. He could have told her how to pick your kills, how to cover your tracks, because believe it or not he'd known what he was doing, before the stupid mistake and the damn traitor that had gotten him caught. Chuck could have told her all about how to be the best killer that she could be.

Except that meant letting her know what he could do, and like him or not, he doubted that she was going to be cool about learning that the kid's doll could understand every word she said. This, though, this was what he needed. This was what he'd never get out of the kid, the _will_ to kill, to see someone die. If Andy was a little more like his babysitter, Chuck wouldn't have to jump through hoops to get him to do anything that he wanted. No one would look twice at Aubrey going where he needed her to, even if she was a skinny college girl. She was so close, and he still couldn't do shit about it.

Chuck didn't want to say nothing, though, so he activated his voice box. "Hi, I'm Chucky, and I'll be your friend ‘til the end!"

Aubrey stared at the doll for a second, a thin hand reaching up to wipe her eyes dry. Then she started laughing.

"Well, you'd be the first," she admitted dryly, still laughing. After a moment she just laid her head down on the ottoman next to the doll's leg, eyes so close to him that she couldn't make out the stupid pattern on his coveralls anymore. "...why am I like this, Chuck?"

And that was really the issue, wasn't it? She wasn't crying because she wanted to slit a person's throat just to watch the blood flow. That _should_ have been why but, ultimately, what was bothering her was how alone she felt. How alone she'd _always_ felt, even before she'd realized what was wrong with her.

*

Aubrey wasn't in the habit of letting Andy do things he shouldn't. He was only six, and maybe if he were older and a fucking asshole she wouldn't give a shit what he did as long as he didn't bother her, but he wasn't. He was Andy, who was always eager to follow instructions and was never a little dick when he couldn't have something he wanted.

So maybe sometimes she let him do stuff Karen wouldn't totally approve of, like staying up an hour late with ice cream and the new CD she'd just gotten and didn't want to wait to listen to until she got home; some new group called the Smashing Pumpkins. A girl in one of her classes had talked it up to no end, and she liked Fugazi so Aubrey generally thought she wasn't a total moron. When it came to music, anyway. Other than that she was a pretty useless cow.

The CD was actually pretty great, and she'd even let Andy drag her off the couch to dance with him for one of the songs. Then, naturally, he'd insisted she dance with her new secret best friend, which was super lame but at least it was kind of funny.

After she'd finally gotten him into bed—well before Karen was supposed to get back, of course (what she didn't know wouldn't hurt her)—Aubrey took up her usual spot on the couch with a can of Pepsi, the CD repeating itself at a much quieter volume now. She didn't even bother getting her books out for the night yet. She'd... she'd do it, she just couldn't right now. It was too hard to focus on it yet when all she could think about was the crap she'd spewed at the doll the night before.

She felt better. She felt worse. She felt... She didn't know. But she had, at least, decided to wait on dropping out of school until she'd figure her shit out a little more. Maybe she'd be able to focus enough to pretend she cared and keep up appearances after... After _what_? After she murdered someone?

Yeah. Yeah, that was it more or less, wasn't it?

As much as Chuck was starting to think that there was actually something to Aubrey, something interesting, he'd expected the CD she'd put in would be something that grated on his ears and made him want to kill things. Killer in waiting or not, she was a college girl, and their taste in music was usually painful. No offense to Aubrey. He thought it was probably a girl thing.

It had been surprisingly okay, though, and the little dance party the kid had insisted on had been… well, he'd gotten picked up by someone big enough to actually hold him in a way that wasn't uncomfortable, highlight of his day, when that happened. Been awhile since he'd danced with a pretty girl, too, even if he couldn't exactly do anything about it. And hey, Aubrey had said he was cute, that first day they were watching the news. Shocked the hell out of him. Of course, she'd said that about the body that was probably rotting in a morgue somewhere, not his current one, but it wasn't like Chuck could do anything about it when she thought he was a creepy doll, anyway.

Then it was him and Aubrey, in silence again. Chuck wondered if she'd tell him more about what she'd started saying the night before. He wanted her to, but he couldn't prompt her. Couldn't do anything more than sit there like a dumb fuck doll.

Someday, Chuck would figure out how to get his body, or at least _a_ body back. Then? Then he was going to have to look up Aubrey again, see how cute she thought he was then. See if she wanted to talk about all the different ways that you could make someone bleed.

## 003\. PLAYTIME'S OVER

Chuck hadn't planned on being stuck for so long. He hadn't planned on it lasting more than a couple of nights before he had his revenge, but every try at getting Andy out from where he was supposed to be and to Eddie's safe house had gotten stopped before it even started. Hell, Chuck was starting to consider that it might be worth stabbing someone just to get the space to get out, except the kid would probably scream, and if he saw Chuck kill someone he might not be willing to ‘play' with him anymore. Even a kid could only be pushed so far.

There was another option, of course, but the chances of Aubrey listening to a plastic doll about how to kill people still seemed pretty slim, even if she had the itch for it. She was there again that night, the kid already in bed, Chuck left to sit on the couch with her afterward without even asking, anymore. It had been quiet, aside from a phone call earlier—he assumed the kid's mom, but it wasn't like the babysitter had thought it would be a great idea to take the doll to the phone with her so that he could hear what was going on, was it? No normal person would do that… and Aubrey might not be normal, but she wasn't that kind of crazy, either.

It was a normal night, and that was starting to set his little plastic teeth on edge. Every day he was in this body it started feeling more like his, changing in ways that just weren't right for plastic to change. How long before he couldn't get out at all? He knew he should have asked John more questions, that the fact that it had seemed too good to be true probably meant that it was. That was something else he'd need Andy's help for, though, which meant he was screwed.

Chuck was just starting to plan whether he could make it out the window in the night without anybody noticing when he heard it. Just a small sound. Just something a little out of the ordinary. When you lived the kind of life that Chuck had, though, you paid attention to those small things. So, he stayed quiet. Stayed still. But he listened.

Aubrey wasn't acting like anything was up—but, then, she had only stayed pissed long enough to make the walk back from the phone back to the living room when the call had come through a couple of hours earlier. A lot of things set her off, but Dylan Brookes wasn't one of them. He just wasn't that far onto her radar anymore, now that he had no reason to be. Was it shitty of him to call her on her work number when he knew she'd only given it to him—when they were dating, no less—in case something came up? Yeah. It was. But whatever. He'd had his pathetic whine and she'd walked away from it after it was out of his system.

Maybe now he'd leave her the fuck alone.

"Fucking hate people," she muttered to herself, reaching for the remote. She paused before turning the TV on, though, glancing toward the hallway. It was probably just a neighbor getting home late. But then there was another, louder noise, and she sat up. "Go to bed, Andy," she warned.

But Andy didn't say anything, and she didn't hear his little feet padding quickly back to his room; she was pretty sure it hadn't come from that direction anyway. Aubrey frowned as she set the remote down, almost dropping it when someone knocked loudly and made her jump.

"What the fuck?" She got to her feet, looking into the kitchen to see the time on the wall clock. It was almost half past midnight. She tensed, not moving from her spot by the couch.

"Aubrey!" a voice called, before they started knocking again.

"Oh my _god_ ," Aubrey sighed, deflating almost instantly when she recognized Dylan's voice. She made her way to the door, asking, "What do you want, dude?" without opening it. Not that she was scared of him or anything—she just didn't want to deal with it.

"I just wanna talk," he said, voice close to the other side of the door. "C'mon. I brought your CD back too, like you wanted. Screaming Trees?"

"There's nothing to talk about," she pointed out. But she did want that fucking CD back.

"Don't be like this, babe..."

Aubrey rolled her eyes and unlocked the door. "Give me my CD," she said blandly, holding her hand out.

Dylan Brookes was a tall boy with broad shoulders and big hands and a shock of white blonde hair. He was gorgeous, in an idiotic sort of way; didn't really look like the sharpest tool in the shed—which was pretty accurate. He hadn't really been Aubrey's type, but he'd asked her out and she knew she'd needed to do something social.

He was okay, she guessed. Nothing special, sort of boring, and an A for effort in bed, even if he wasn't very good. The personality of a loaf of bread, honestly.

"Can I come in?"

"If I let you get this out of your system will you stop riding me?" Aubrey asked.

"Yeah, yeah. I promise. Just let me talk to you, and if you still want me to go, I will."

She'd almost say he was fucking lying—like any guy ever would when he said shit like that—but Dylan was just... so unimaginative. So short-sighted. He probably _did_ just want to cry all over her for another chance.

Ohhh, the babysitter had her boyfriend over. Or ex-boyfriend, judging by how she was talking to him. Still, Chuck had seen enough movies to know this was always where things went bad, when the innocent little babysitter (or not so innocent, in Aubrey's case) gave in and let the guy come over. In this case, Chuck guessed he would be the ‘something bad' that happened, but he was good with sitting back and seeing what Aubrey did, how she handled it if Tall, Blond, and Dumb started getting on her nerves.

If he was lucky, maybe she'd snap and make her first kill right there in front of him. Wouldn't that be a beautiful thing to witness?

Chuck still didn't _like_ it, though, this idiot interrupting his quiet night with Aubrey. If he was here, she wouldn't talk more to Chuck about how she wanted to kill everyone around her, and he could stand to hear more of that, even if it didn't help his current problems. But no, instead he had to listen to this jockstrap whine about whatever it was that she'd obviously broken up with him over. There was nothing more annoying than listening to that.

Maybe he would kill him, after all. 

Aubrey stared at a spot on the wall past Dylan's head as he moped. The worst part was she was dead sure it wasn't an act. He really _was_ that much of a little bitch. She guessed it was nice that he cared about her that much and all, but... it was kind of hard to appreciate it when he was just another warm body to her.

"I mean... we were together for a _year_ , Aubrey. And then—then nothing. Just like that? Why? You never even told me why."

"Why do you even care? Wouldn't it make more sense to stop carrying on like this and find someone who likes you? Jesus Christ, Dylan. It's not like we were gonna get _married_."

"...wow." Dylan's brows drew together a little. "Why are you acting like such a bitch?"

"Maybe I'm not acting," Aubrey snapped. "You want me to tell you why I bailed? Okay. You're the most boring person I've ever met. Hanging out with you? Is like hanging out with a rock. I literally enjoy sitting around with that plastic doll over there more than I like being around you. You talk for hours—about _nothing_ —and it's the most inane shit I've ever had to sit through. And the baby names? And the fucking hand holding? How fucking _old_ are we, dude?"

"What the hell's the matter with you?" he asked, clearly hurt, but actually starting to sound... sort of angry. For fucking once. "You act like I didn't even _matter_ to you."

"You didn't," Aubrey said, tone flat, after a minute. It was true, but it was also for his own good. Maybe if she just told him the truth he'd get the fuck over it and bother some girl who actually thought his shit was cute.

Or maybe today would be the day that Dylan Brookes finally acted like more than a cow-eyed golden retriever.

He just stared at her for a moment, the room dead silent, before he let out a low noise, nearly knocking the coffee table over when he lunged at Aubrey. She hit the floor with a loud thud and didn't even register what was happening until she realized she couldn't breathe. His big fucking meathead hands were around her thin neck, thighs pinning her at the hips so she couldn't even kick him in the balls, even though she was trying her hardest to. She reached up, digging her nails into the side of his face as the other hand reached out wildly. The fire poker was too fucking far. If she were just a _foot_ closer...

This Dylan guy whined and moaned worse than any girl Chuck had ever met, and he had met some _whiners_. He didn't know what Aubrey had ever seen in this guy to date him in the first place, she'd seemed so much smarter than that. It was a little disappointing, actually, to think that she'd ever given this dick a chance to follow her around like some dumb puppy. He'd thought she might be a lady with some standards.

The disappointment lasted exactly until she unloaded on the guy about how he was as boring as Chuck had found the entire whining routine. Sure, she might have been selling rocks short with the comparison, but no one was perfect. It was still as great a verbal evisceration as he'd ever seen, and if she went after the real thing that neatly, she was gonna go far. And that death blow of ‘I didn't'... classic. Class _y_. Now there was a girl who knew how to finish a kill.

The fact that Dumbass Dylan actually went after Chuck's girl was shocking. Chuck hadn't thought he had the balls for it, but it sounded like he hadn't seen in Aubrey what Chuck had, either. He didn't know what it was that he was going after. Any minute now, Aubrey was going to toss him off of her, and make her first kill and find herself in a whole new world, the kind of world where she'd realize what being at home in your own skin was like for the first time. Any minute now… her hand was edging toward the poker…

Chuck realized before she'd even stretched her arm out all the way that she couldn't reach it. Huh. Looked like she was actually trapped. Meathead might actually manage to choke the life out of her, right there on the floor, with the kid asleep down the hall. The mom would come in and find her there, there'd be screaming, and chaos, and they couldn't murder a wedding party and take the rings and cake someday if Aubrey was dead, could they?

Aubrey might not be able to reach the poker, but no one was stopping Chuck from moving. Dumbass Dylan was too focused on choking the life out of Aubrey to notice him, and he had gotten past the point of giving a fuck if the girl saw him. She might be less likely to freak out over a living doll if the living doll had saved her life, or at least if she was as smart as he was thinking she was, she would be. He darted over and grabbed the poker. It was almost too big for Chuck to use as a weapon, but he spaced his hands out on it a little, took careful aim, and swung.

It hit Dylan right in the temple, with as much force as Chuck's small body could manage. That was alright; it knocked him off of her, and once Chuck scrambled over Aubrey and climbed onto his chest, it got a whole lot easier to keep bashing, again and again, until the carpet around his head was soaked in blood.

Aubrey was confused at first. One minute she was about to black out, colors blooming in front of her eyes while that motherfucker crushed her goddamn windpipe, and then she was gasping for air so forcefully that she thought she might vomit on herself, air and relief crashing back into her as her chest heaved violently.

And then she heard the noise; a sickening, wet _thwack_ that just kept going and, before she could pass out from the dizzying relief of being able to breathe again, she turned her head, staring with a mixture of shock and horror. Not because Dylan was getting his brains bashed in—she couldn't give less of a shit about that—but because the fucking _Good Guy doll_ was the one doing it.

 _She really was crazy…_

Aubrey just watched, air coming and going in harsh wheezes as the kid's doll murdered her ex-boyfriend not two feet away from her. It wasn't long before Dylan stopped moving; his face nothing but a bloody, torn up mess, and his blood seeped across the carpet in a bright halo that reached out to soak the ends of her hair. She could feel blood, wet and warm, flecked across her face, and her throat was bright red, as if trying to compete with it.

What did you do in a situation like this? What the fuck _was this_? Screaming and running was probably what most people would do, but... Well, he had sort of saved her ass, hadn't he? Maybe Dylan had given her fucking brain damage.

Aubrey's arm stretched out and she touched Dylan's jaw, tilting his head until what was left of his mangled face was staring back at her blankly. "Congratulations, Dylan," she rasped, throat burning in protest. "That was the most interesting thing you've ever done."

She was almost proud of the stupid piece of shit.

Aubrey turned her head back toward the ceiling as she started to cough, more colors popping and fading across her vision. For a second she thought she might pass out, but the worst of the lightheadedness faded—and she was left awake and in a room with a corpse and a killer doll.

"The _fuck_ just happened...?"

Eh, in for a sheep… Chuck tossed the poker aside. It landed with a thump on the floor, blood from the end of it dripping onto the carpet to form its own separate stain on the floor. So much for the carpet; there was no way the stain was coming out of that. Andy's mom wasn't getting _her_ deposit back, was she? Chuckling, Chuck hopped down from the dead body's chest, small feet squelching in the soaked carpet. Hopefully no one thought about looking too close at his feet, because there was no reason for a doll to have been on his feet in the mess. Like the cops would ever think to check. Who was going to believe that a doll had killed a guy with a poker?

"That guy…" Chuck didn't bother keeping his voice down, or trying to use the one built into the doll. No, this was his voice, the one that belonged to his full-sized body, and god it was good to hear it again. "...was really annoying. I think you can do better."

The vacant smile on his doll face was twisted into as close to a smirk as he could get it. He walked over to stand by Aubrey's head, looking down at her. "Didn't anyone ever tell you not to settle for the first loser that comes your way?" Usually, the loser that girls' parents were talking about was Chuck. It was nice to turn the tables for once.

Aubrey couldn't exactly shake his hand and look him in the face at the same time in her position, so Chuck reached down and patted her cheek, instead. "Name's…" He hesitated. It was one thing for the babysitter to know that he was killer doll. It was another thing for the babysitter to know that he was the killer that had been on the news. She might not be as willing to go along with his secret, then. "Chuck. And no, it isn't brain damage."

Aubrey almost wanted to defend herself, but why bother? Dylan didn't exist anymore, so who cared? She wasn't defending her dire need to appear normal before people started looking at her funny to a _doll_.

"You killed him," she said after a moment of staring, pretty sure she'd totally lost it and that the only thing she could really do was fucking roll with it. Then she started laughing. "You _killed him_."

It hurt—it hurt so _fucking_ much to laugh, but she couldn't help it. "I guess he'll leave me the fuck alone now," she cackled, looking at Dylan's dead body again. It only made her laugh harder, one hand moving up to hold her throat as if somehow that would make the pain lessen. There was a strange sort of joy in being face to face with her first dead body. She only wished she'd done it her fucking self.

"Need to call the cops," she wheezed. It hurt to sit up and her head spun, and after she was upright again she just sat there for a moment, bracing her weight on one hand as she wiped the blood off the side of her face. She looked at the wet red stain on her fingers, then stuck one in her mouth, the familiar tang of copper settling against her tongue.

Aubrey might have been disinterested in her classes, but she was no idiot, and she had always been quick on her feet. She picked the fire poker up by the clean end, wiping the handle down with her shirt. Not that dolls had fucking finger prints, but it was better safe than sorry. She gripped it the same way she would have if she'd been the one to beat Dylan to death, then grabbed the end of it just to spread a few more prints around and dropped it next to his body.

God, she hoped Andy stayed asleep. She glanced toward the hallway as she got to her knees, making sure he wasn't there before she undid her belt and threw it next to the fireplace. The bruising on her throat was more than enough evidence that she'd been attacked, but the doll had _really_ done a number on him. Better to make it look good. She undid her fly and reached down the side of her jeans, grabbing the side of her panties so she could pull them up, over her hip and tear the thin fabric that should have sat against her side.

Personally, she thought she was giving Dylan _way_ too much credit.

Aubrey got to her feet a little unsteadily as she buttoned her jeans back up, whistling tunelessly to herself as she tipped the vase off of the mantle, then lifted the side of the coffee table to spill its contents and drop it on top. For good measure, she opened her backpack and took her Econ work out, setting it all out on the end of the couch.

"You just got upgraded, baby," Aubrey sneered, straddling Dylan's dead body as she took his hand and positioned it against the side of her neck. She dug his nails in with her fingers, then dragged it downward as hard as she could, taking skin with it as she hissed quietly. She made a mental note not to wash her hands; there was still skin under her own nails from when she'd tried to claw his fucking face off while he was choking her.

There wasn't a cop alive who wouldn't take the side of the poor, defenseless young lady who'd just wanted to spend the night babysitting and doing her homework, only to be interrupted by an ex-boyfriend who didn't want to take no for an answer.

Sure, Chuck had expected Aubrey not to freak out at the sight of a dead body, and to figure out how to cover all of it up—the self-defense angle didn't take a genius, just someone who could keep enough of a head to plan out how to get away with murder. He hadn't expected her to be so competent and thorough about it without his even chiming in, though. Chuck had a lot more experience, but Aubrey was a _natural_. That was hot. If he'd had the parts, watching Aubrey casually rip her own panties and then screw up the room so that it looked like a big fight had gone down, he'd have popped a boner right there. His mouth stayed dropped open, head turning to follow her as she moved across the room. Now that, that was a smart girl. Looked like all that college was paying off.

And was she… yeah, she was going to scratch her own neck open, now that was some dedication. Normally, Chuck wouldn't worry about covering it up, not when he wasn't planning on sticking around, but this one was different. He had it pretty good here, even better if Aubrey turned out to be as useful as he thought she would. So, this time, covering it up was necessary, and that meant that Chuck had to be somewhere innocent, too. Somewhere that could excuse him having blood on him was harder.

Better to be out of sight, actually. Chuck looked around, then cleared his throat (or at least tried to sound like it) to get Aubrey's attention. "Yeah, I'll be under the couch, if you need me. Looks like you've got this under control." And it wasn't like Chuck could be a witness, anyway. He was a fucking _doll_. He lowered himself to the floor, edged his way under the couch. Hopefully, the cops would be there and gone before Andy's mom got home. Then, he could strip and see what Aubrey could do about rinsing his clothes out before she got there. Just say he'd gotten splattered. He didn't think she'd want sweet little Andy to know about what his doll could really do.

Yeah... yeah, that was for the best. She'd been thinking she'd have to clean him up first, but putting it off would be better. The body wouldn't have time to get too cold and the cops wouldn't wonder why it had taken her so long to call.

Before going to the phone, Aubrey sat down on the clean part of the living room floor, staring coldly at Dylan's body as she tried to zone out. Or in, rather. What made her sad...? That was harder to answer than it seemed like. Not much _did_. Aubrey didn't get sad. She got _angry_.

She closed her eyes, flipping through scenarios in her head. Surprisingly, the idea of something bad happening to Andy sparked something in her, so she clung to it, picturing the worst things she could imagine happening to the sweet little kid she'd known for two years; awful things, shit even she would never do to another person.

Aubrey sniffed quietly, tears cutting through the traces of blood on her face as she started to cry in earnest. She got to her feet while she could hold onto it and made her way to the phone to call 911, sobbing uncontrollably as she told the police where she was. That her ex had tried to rape her; had tried to kill her. That she thought he was dead.

That she didn't _mean_ to do it.

## 004\. KIND OF A FUNNY STORY

It had been a long night. By the time the cops were done with her and the body had been removed from the apartment, Andy had been awake for almost two hours. At least she'd gotten to him before he'd had a chance to see the body itself, but there was no missing all the blood.

Even with all the questions, it was obvious that none of the four cops there blamed the pretty, crying wreck of a girl even a little bit for defending herself so... vehemently. Especially when a small child had been fast asleep just a few rooms away.

After they left, Aubrey just sat at the kitchen table, watching Andy carefully. "What's up, peanut?" she asked quietly. Quiet was the only volume her voice could do right then. Her throat had migrated quickly from bright red to dark purple bruising.

"I'm sorry you got hurt," he said quietly, looking like he was about to start crying again.

"It's okay," Aubrey promised. "I'll be fine."

"Where's Chucky?" he asked pitifully. "Why didn't he keep you safe...?"

Aubrey wasn't sure how to answer that. Did the poor thing just really like making believe the doll was actually their friend, or had he seen it too? She _was_ crazy, right? That hadn't... _happened_ , right? She wasn't sure one way or the other, and hadn't been from the start.

Chuck had to admit, Aubrey put on a great show. She might have been the best liar he'd ever seen; probably how she convinced the world that she was such a normal girl for so long. Sure, she hadn't gone over that edge, still, but Chuck knew it was coming. There was only so close you could come to death without cracking and taking a swing at it yourself, and Aubrey had crossed a line. There was no turning back, just directing it at the right target. 

Through the police visit, Aubrey's lies, Andy waking up, Chuck had stayed tucked safe under the couch. No one had bothered looking underneath it. There was plenty to look at in the room without turning the place upside down, and there wasn't any reason to question Aubrey's story. She'd made sure of that, hadn't she? Smart girl.

When the kid started in afterward, though, Chuck muttered a curse to himself. Andy knew what he could do, and if he thought Chuck had just sat there and let his precious babysitter get hurt, he was going to be mad, and even if Chuck had Aubrey to help him out now, having the kid mad at him would make Chuck's life a lot more inconvenient. He needed Andy on _his_ side, even more than he was on Aubrey's side. Chuck was his new best friend, after all. The best friend that Andy would lie for, and cover for. Chuck had never realized how useful lonely kids were, before, even if they did get annoying.

Slowly, he edged his way out from under the couch and stood, blood splattered but otherwise still in perfect shape, as long as someone could get the blood out of his clothes before it really stained. "Who said I didn't?" It was the first time Andy had heard him talk louder than a whisper, and the kid jerked around with wide eyes, staring at him.

Then, the kid's eyes darted to Aubrey, then back to Chuck, worried. "Chucky, you said we couldn't tell."

How he was supposed to have kept Aubrey from getting hurt without ‘telling', Chuck didn't know. Kid logic, he guessed. "Aubrey's _special_ , isn't she?" Oh, so special. Sooner or later, Aubrey would remember what she'd told him, thinking that he was just a dumb doll that couldn't understand a word she said, and she'd realize what he thought was so special about her. Andy, he'd just agree. Aubrey was special.

Andy looked suitably reassured because, yes, Aubrey was very special. He couldn't argue that. He also looked extremely pleased with his doll for being a hero. Er, more or... less. What he didn't know wouldn't hurt him, right?

"Jesus fuck," Aubrey muttered, voice nothing more than a cracking growl.

Andy gasped, looking at her as if she were about to get in trouble. "That's a bad word," he warned with quiet awe.

"Sorry," she managed, eyes still on the doll. Alright. So. She hadn't hallucinated the whole thing and actually killed Dylan herself. She hadn't really thought that was what had happened, but it was a valid option. Much more valid than a walking, talking doll, for sure.

"You're all dirty, Chucky," Andy pointed out with a small frown.

"Yeah, I'm gonna take care of that," Aubrey said with a small sigh, then glanced at the clock on the wall. Karen wouldn't be home for another two hours. A normal person would have probably called her as soon as the cops were on the way, but she—and this situation—were far, _far_ from normal. So she'd just drop the shitty bomb on her after her shift and offer to try and pay for the carpet or... something.

"Okay, peanut," she said, getting out of her chair. Her back cramped up painfully and she guessed getting body slammed to the ground was catching up to her too. "Can you do me a favor? It's gotta be a secret though."

What was one more on top of everything else? Andy nodded solemnly and Aubrey reached out to take his hand.

"I need you to go back to bed while I go downstairs and get me and Chucky cleaned up, okay? You stay in your room until we get back, and don't tell Mommy I left the apartment tonight. Can you do that?"

"Sure," Andy agreed softly, the fact that she could have easily brought him with her not even crossing his mind. She was an adult, and you could trust adults.

"Night, kid." Chuck waved awkwardly, toddling over to Aubrey on his stubby legs. He could move pretty fast when he wanted to, sure, but moving at a normal speed was a special kind of awkward. Plastic just didn't move quite right, did it? He didn't want to have to ask Aubrey to pick him up and carry him, but since she was such a smart girl, she'd figure out anyway that as creepy as it looked to carry a bloody doll through the hall, it would be even worse if the doll was walking beside her. There was a reason he'd planned on getting Andy to do all the transportation for him.

Andy slid off his chair and onto his feet, rocking a little like he wanted to move forward to hug one or both of them. He didn't, though, just said, "Good night, Chucky. Good night, Aubrey." Then, like the good little boy he was, he marched right back to his room, going around the blood stains. The sheets rustled as he climbed back into bed and covered up.

Chuck listened with his head cocked to the side, waiting until the creaking springs of the bed stopped, meaning Andy was all settled in. "Time's wasting." The kid would be fine. It wasn't like anything worse than what was already there was going to get into the apartment that night.

Aubrey grabbed the side of the counter with one hand to steady herself so she could lean down and pick the doll up, wincing slightly. God, she was so glad that stupid motherfucker was dead. Her back was gonna be fucked for days, at least, and she didn't even want to know what her neck looked like.

She glanced at the doll as she walked out and started picking her way through the wrecked living room so she could dig her keys out of her backpack. This was _fucking nuts_ , right? And she knew nuts— _she_ fucking was nuts.

"I'm just downstairs a couple floors," she told him on her way to the door, grabbing Karen's spare keys off the hook so she could lock Andy in, checking the door before heading for the elevator. It was late, so the building was empty and quiet, most of the residents either asleep or, in a few cases, at work. Thank fuck; she didn't need anyone stopping her to ask what the hell had happened to her.

Of course, there had to be someone on the elevator, right? It was a young guy, close to her own age, in a baggy blazer and boater hat, and he just stared at her as she stepped on and pushed the button for her floor.

"...uh."

Aubrey stared right back at him, expressionless, as the doors closed them in together. She kept looking at him and he stepped back without seeming to realize he was doing it, back bumping into the corner of the elevator. When the car jolted to a stop and the doors opened again he practically fell over himself getting out.

"Cunt," Aubrey muttered as the doors closed and took them another floor down, the button she'd pressed darkening and the doors opening again.

She stepped out and took a left, keys jingling as she sorted out the one she needed, stopping in front of 11-A so she could unlock it and step inside, reaching for the light. The bottom floor apartments were smaller than the ones on Andy's floor, mostly all one bedrooms and studios. It was where they stuck the majority of the tenants her age, save for an extremely old woman who needed the easy access the floor provided.

There were two old couches, a small TV—the usual things you'd find in any twenty-year-old's apartment; band posters plastered the walls and there were a good number of old milk crates against the far wall, all filled with records. The coffee table was littered with notebooks and cassette cases. Her kitchen had a table and one chair that didn't match, and there were two doors on the back left of the area, presumably leading to the bathroom and bedroom. One thing she _didn't_ have present, however, were personal photos. No family pictures, no polaroids with friends; nothing. Just a bunch of music crap and school crap.

"What are you?" she asked, once she felt comfortable talking to a doll again. Aubrey stepped into the kitchen and set Chucky on the table before stripping off her blood stained flannel, the cropped L7 shirt under it relatively unscathed.

Not laughing at the pussy in the elevator as he stumbled away from the bloodsoaked girl and doll was one of the hardest things Chuck could remember having to do in his life. Maybe he should have just gone for it, let himself laugh. Sure, then they couldn't have let the fucker live, but he and Aubrey could have dragged him back to her place. Tied him up. Taken their time this time, and made sure they could clean it all up after themselves. Chuck wanted to see Aubrey _kill_ , he didn't want to wait around for it to happen.

He didn't, though, not until the dumb fuck stumbled off the elevator, probably pissing himself in fear. Then, he chuckled, low and quiet in Aubrey's ear. Bet that guy wished he'd taken the stairs, now.

Aubrey's apartment, when they got there, was closer to what Chuck was used to than the cozy little family setting of Andy's apartment; still not the same as his place, but then again, he wasn't a twenty-year-old girl, was he? He didn't get much of a look around before she sat him down on the table and started stripping—not all the way, unfortunately, but hey, a guy wasn't about to object to a little more skin, was he? Not this guy, anyway, even if he didn't have the necessary parts to completely appreciate it. Now that was a cruel trick of fate, or a voodoo man who didn't give him all the warning labels he should have.

What was Chuck? He sighed, but sat perfectly still on the table. "I'm a guy trapped in a doll's body."

Yeah, okay, that wasn't going to be enough explanation, and there was too much to do to drag this out. "Like I said, the name's Chuck. I got in a tight spot, no way out, and I was dying, but someone had told me how to put my mind into something else. The doll was there, I made a choice, end of story." Except it wasn't, there was the peddler, and Andy, but yeah, yeah, Aubrey had been there for the important parts of that. What mattered: real live guy's brain, doll's body. "I'm not a demon, I'm not a… huh, I guess I could be some kind of a ghost." Chuck hadn't thought too close about what you'd call him. "But I'm here, I'm real, and I'm really pissed off."

"I know the feeling," Aubrey admitted dryly. Everything pissed her off. It didn't stem from anything, didn't make sense, didn't even have to be important—it was just the feeling that dominated most of the time. But...

He fucking knew that, didn't he? She'd told him as much. She'd told him _everything_.

She'd be worried about it if she hadn't just watched him bludgeon Dylan's face in with a fire poker. And, y'know. If he wasn't a fucking _doll_. What was he gonna do, call the nearest mental hospital and ask to have her committed? Not fucking likely.

Aubrey wasn't processing it yet. She was just gonna... accept the freaky shit at face value for now and then sleep on it later. Karen would be home soon anyway; there wasn't time to stand around asking, 'What the fuck?' like a dumb asshole.

"Thanks, by the way," she croaked, opening her fridge, which was sparsely stocked, to get a box of baking soda out of the door. She grabbed the ice cubes from the freezer and turned the cold water on. "Shirt," Aubrey added, holding a hand out.

"It was my pleasure." Chuck meant that. From the bottom of his plastic heart. It had been a real pleasure to bash the guy's face in until he stopped being annoying. Sure, it would have been better if he'd done it before he'd gotten his ham hands around Aubrey's throat, but who'd have known that the idiot had it in him? He'd seemed too boring to be a killer. He probably would have cried afterward. Little bitch.

The shirt wasn't the only thing that needed washing, and it wasn't like Chuck could just hand it to her without losing everything else, too. He had to tug his arms out of the straps of the overalls, which started drooping as soon as he did, before he could even get the shirt off. It was awkward, too, almost impossible to get over his oversized head without ripping it. He managed to get it stretched out just enough, cussing the whole time, for his head to pop out the other side of it. His hair, already matting together with blood, was sticking straight up by the time it was off.

Finally, though, he could toss it toward Aubrey's hand, not even looking to see if she actually caught it before he was stripping out of the rest of it. He could barely bend enough to get the shoes off, but they clattered to the floor once he did. He had to scoot back so he could stand up on the table to get the overalls the rest of the way down his legs. Not the way he'd liked the idea of getting naked in a pretty girl's apartment, but the smooth mound at his groin wasn't what the ladies liked to see, anyway.

He dangled the overalls from his palm by one hand, sneering at them. "Couldn't have packaged these dumb things with a change of clothes, could they?" If they had, they'd have been just as eye burning as what he was stuck in, anyway.

Aubrey tried not to laugh, but she snickered quietly as Chucky struggled with his clothes. And, alright, she could have helped but... undressing a... god, a _man in a doll's body_ was just too weird. So she let him handle it and took his clothes as he handed them over, then got started with one of the only household tricks her mom had ever gotten around to teaching her before she'd kicked it about seven years ago.

Who could have guessed knowing all the best ways to get blood out of clothing would be so useful later?

"Guessing this isn't your first rodeo." The more she talked the more it hurt, and Aubrey could only imagine what fresh bodily hell she was going to wake up to in the morning. Anyway, what kind of person saved the life of someone who'd already admitted to them that they wanted to—and all likelihood were _going_ to—kill people.

The kind of person who was on board with it; that's who.

She left the clothes to soak in the icy water in one side of the sink and rotated the faucet over to the empty side and turned the hot water on, holding a dish rag under the stream to soak it before holding it out. She, uh. She wasn't giving a not-so-inanimate doll a bath.

"So this," Aubrey said, motioning to him. "Is it permanent or... What's going on with all this?"

Chuck took the wet rag from her and started cleaning himself off, wiping the blood off of his face, neck, and hands. The rest of him had been covered, at least, but you didn't beat a man's face in with an iron rod and not get the blood everywhere while you were doing it. The hair, that was where it was going to get tricky, and he held the rag back to Aubrey once he was done with his body. "Rinse this and give to me fresh, doll." It would have helped if he could see what he was doing, but he didn't think about asking for a mirror to use.

It was awkward to be standing there naked in front of her, even if nothing was actually there to show, so Chuck sat down on the table again, tried to cross his legs to provide some coverage for the area where his cock and balls should have been. It didn't really work, he wasn't flexible enough for it, but it made him feel better. Less like a doll, more like a man, if that was possible when he was 100% plastic.

What was going on… now that was a loaded question. "It's possible I missed some of the details. Didn't ask some questions I should have asked." Chuck thought there was a way back to his body, but he didn't _know_ what it was.

"The guy who taught me's still around. He'd know, if I could just get there to ask him." And that was Chuck's problem, that he couldn't get there with everyone watching the kid so closely.

If it was permanent, it was at least better than being dead, but there were a whole lot of things that Chuck didn't want to miss out on that came with having a full-sized, fully functional body.

"Don't call me that," Aubrey said blandly, then smirked. "I'm not the three feet tall hunk of plastic." Even so, she took the cloth and rinsed it out before giving it back. She checked the clothes that were soaking and scrubbed at some of the areas that weren't coming out on their own before leaving them to sit a bit longer. She was going to have to get her hair dryer out or something when she was done, she thought. The laundry room was an option, she guessed, but she didn't really want to hang around in there with a naked doll and her neck all fucked up.

"I could take you to him," Aubrey offered as she stepped out of the kitchen. _Voodoo_. Somehow that made everything _less_ weird instead of more weird. She didn't have a car, but that didn't matter. Going by bus would be faster than trying to get there himself, and what other options were there—taking _Andy_ on a field trip? Not happening. "Owe you one anyway."

Her undershirt may have been fine, but her jeans weren't and her panties were trash now, so she needed to change and clean the wounds on her neck. She reached to undo her belt on her way to her room only to realize it was still upstairs where she'd thrown it, then hauled her t-shirt over her head with a pained growl when it made the muscles in her back burn and her throat sting. Aubrey shut the door behind her and dug out a pair of shorts and a shirt, dressing quickly before coming back out with a small bag in hand and a mirror and a shirt in the other.

"Where is he?" she asked, picking the topic back up as she sat down. She tossed the extra shirt she'd brought into Chucky's lap. Maybe he didn't have a dick, but it was still kind of weird when he was moving around and talking just like a real person. Aubrey held the mirror up and made a face, jaw tightening a little.

"That's _real_ fucking attractive," she sneered, eyeing the heavy bruising and the self-inflicted wounds. She unzipped the nylon pouch and dumped a few first aid supplies onto the table—a tube of antibiotic cream, some alcohol wipe packets, a bottle of prescription pills with someone else's name on the label, and a few other things—and got to work cleaning her neck up.

It was what Chuck had wanted, wasn't it? Aubrey volunteering to take him wherever he needed to go. Chuck was surprised it had been so _easy_ , though. She was right, though. She owed him, and if that was all it was, Chuck had plenty of time while they were together to convince her otherwise. Getting his body back, though, that wasn't Chuck's top priority. It should have been, but there was one thing that was more important than that, and that was getting back at Eddie. 

He didn't have much time to think about it while Aubrey was in her room, changing, and most of that was spent fighting with the rag and his hair. Doll hair, it turned out, was harder to clean than human hair. Didn't bounce back as well from mistreatment, like getting covered in blood. He thought he'd gotten most of it by the time she was back. She'd tell him if he hadn't, to save both their asses.

The rag was spread out across his lap by the time that Aubrey got back, his head turned to watch her crossing the room. He pulled the shirt over his head and smoothed it down to cover him before he tossed that aside. Yeah, that was better. It wasn't normal for a shirt to cover his whole body, but it was better than a wet rag. It might have even been better than a rainbow striped shirt and overalls, if he really wanted to measure the levels of awful clothes choices. "Thanks."

Sure, Chuck could give Aubrey the address, but he wasn't sure if he wanted to go there first, or if he wanted to take advantage of her generous offer to help to take care of the most important business first. "Be easier for me to just give you directions, don't you think?" It wasn't like any of the areas that Chuck would be taking her to were the kind of places that good college girls would have hung out much, even ones who were just waiting to become killers. Chuck, though, he knew just how to get around. That way, he could decide on the way where they were going.

Sneaky and underhanded, maybe, but he got the feeling that Aubrey would forgive him, if she knew what exactly it was that he wanted to do.

Aubrey glanced over at him, eyeing him suspiciously for a second before looking back to the mirror to finish up her neck. Dylan's nails, at least, hadn't done nearly as much damage as if he'd actually been the one to claw her up; enough to bleed a little, but she thought those would probably finish healing before the bruising did.

"Yeah, alright," she said. Whatever it was he was planning, she didn't know, but if she was right about him (and she thought she was) she figured it probably involved killing someone. Whoever'd been teaching him crazy voodoo shit was her first guess, but who knew. Aubrey tossed everything back into the bag and leaned over to throw the used alcohol pads away before turning to Chucky.

"From now on if you need to go somewhere, you ask me," she told him; half offer, half demand. She wasn't stupid. He was stuck in a goddamn _doll's_ body, for fuck's sake. Getting around on his own would be a lot harder, and help was in short supply. Aubrey leaned over, brows raising a little as she stared right into those bright blue eyes, that were far too clear and real to belong to a Good Guy doll.

"Because if you get Andy hurt or into trouble? I'll fucking kill you," she murmured, then smiled. "And I think we both know just how much I mean that."

Yeah, Chuck didn't doubt for a second that she did. He wasn't sure how easy he'd be to kill, but that would put a real kink in those wedding plans, so he didn't think he wanted to risk it. Besides, it was exactly what he'd wanted, wasn't it? "Yeah, yeah, I'll ask if I need your help." Like she wasn't offering the solution to all of Chuck's problems, right there.

"...might need a lot of help. Just until I figure out how to get my body back." Then, Chuck could be the one to help her, couldn't he?

The clean up job looked good. Looked like they were done, except for waiting for Chuck's clothes to be clean enough for her to put them back on him. His eyes flicked down to it only briefly before he was looking into hers again. Did she think she'd be able to tell if he was telling the truth by looking him in the eye? Good luck with that. It wasn't like he'd been the most honest of guys even before he was a doll.

First Eddie, then John, and then… hell, maybe then the cop, if Chuck was feeling ambitious. yeah, it was nice to have a plan.

"Good. As long as you leave the kid out of it we'll do whatever you want." Not because she was scared; not out of any real desire to be noble—not really—but just because she _really_ wanted to find out if they were gonna be killing people.

She hoped they were.

*

Using a handheld device to dry clothes, even doll clothes, took a while, but all of the blood had come out save for a little bit on a spot that wasn't easily seen, so it went pretty well. Still, by the time Aubrey carted them both back upstairs to wait for Karen it was cutting it pretty close.

She got home fifteen minutes after them, but Aubrey was ready. Ready to cry, to play the victim, to pretend she was _so fucking sorry_ and she didn't know what had happened. But Karen, of course, was a good person. She didn't need convincing, and she was just so glad Aubrey and Andy were okay.

"You can stay the night, if you want," she offered softly, rubbing Aubrey's back in slow circles. "You shouldn't be going to school tomorrow anyway, so why don't you just take it easy here tomorrow while Andy's at school. I'll switch shifts so I can work the morning and you can have tomorrow night off, too."

"Oh, you don't have to..." Aubrey sniffed, but she couldn't be further from sad. Eight hours during the day where both the kid and his mom were out of the house and she was actually _supposed_ to be there? It was perfect. She nodded slightly, hair falling into her face. "Yeah... I'd like that. Thanks."

After seeing her clean up and get ready for the cops, it hadn't surprised Chuck that Aubrey had managed to pull everything together and get them back down and in place before Andy's mom got home. He didn't doubt for a second that she was going to pull the story she'd come up with to feed to everyone else off, not after seeing her first performance. The second one was made less dramatic by the fact that the kid's mom was ready to buy into it. She wasn't a cop. She wanted to see this girl she'd let close to her kid as basically good, and it wasn't like there was any evidence that she was wrong.

It worked out even better than planned, though, with Aubrey being given permission to stay there while everyone else was gone. If he hadn't been sitting right out in the open, Chuck would have celebrated. Aubrey played that like a champ, too, and everything was settled. Chuck would just have to get the kid to play along. That was going to be like taking candy from a baby.

## 005\. HOUSE PARTY

In the end, all it had taken was a whisper in Andy's ear that Chuck thought he should stay and take care of their friend Aubrey, when he woke up in the morning and came to give Chuck his good morning hug. Andy pulled back and looked at him with big solemn eyes, then nodded and walked over to where Aubrey had slept on the couch, arms still wrapped tightly around Chuck.

"Chucky's going to stay with you today, okay, Aubrey?" Andy held him out to her, the picture of innocence. It was almost like he'd thought of it himself. What a good kid. "So no bad people get you."

His mom, of course, had thought it was so fucking sweet, and winked at Aubrey as she hustled Andy out the door, coat and backpack on. Even if it had just been getting out of a day of school, Chuck would have been glad for it. Sitting in a cubby was _boring_. He couldn't wait until he didn't have to do it anymore.

Chuck waited until they were out the door, and he and Aubrey were alone at last, to hop up and start moving around the apartment. They were going to Eddie first, he'd decided. Eddie, and then the guy who had given Chuck the spell he'd needed in the first place. Let Aubrey see him at work, again, see what he could come up with even as a plastic doll. She'd see how much she could learn from him. "Rise and shine and put your face on, we've got places we need to be." The sooner the better. If everything went right, Chuck wouldn't be coming back here tonight.

"Yeah," Aubrey growled, throat not wanting to do much else by way of noise. "I'm up." Mostly.

She sat up, eyeing the blanket on the carpet that was covering the blood they'd been too tired to clean up. Karen had refused to let her pay to replace it, which was alright with her. She never had much money anyway—and what money she did have came from... well, from _Karen_.

"Feel like I got hit by a fucking car," she muttered as she moved to pack up her bag. "Alright, we've got like eight hours. We're gonna run downstairs so I can shower and then we'll get the fuck out of here," she told Chucky, reaching to pick him up after shouldering her bag.

Aubrey locked up quickly, ignoring the couple that was leaving for the day as she made her way to the back elevator. "Can I ask you something?" she asked as the elevator doors shut them in.

Time was ticking, but Chuck wasn't going to complain about her taking a shower. The fact that she looked beat up and was an adult carrying a kid's doll was going to get enough attention, without worrying about things like body odor, or being dirty. The best way to get away with murder was to not catch anybody's attention, and especially to not look like the kind of person that was going to murder someone. Chuck had been good at that.

He stayed stiff and silent as she carried him through the hall, but looked up at her once the elevator doors had closed and she spoke to him. There was going to be a lot more talking before the end of the day, if he didn't answer questions that was just going to make things awkward before they were done, and if it was awkward… it wouldn't be that hard to just dump Chuck in a dumpster somewhere, would it?

"Sure." He stared back at the elevator doors, the numbers lighting up signalling their way down. "But hold me up closer to your ear. I can whisper it to you, and no one'll even know I'm talking." Might be harder, with their size difference compared to his and Andy's, but he thought it could work.

Aubrey shifted Chucky in her arms a little as she asked, "How many people have you killed?"

She didn't sound wary or upset—and why should she? It was the casual interest that someone would have in their tone if they were asking about how someone's new job was going or how the kids were liking their new school.

The elevator doors opened to an empty hall, as she'd figured would be the case. Save for the one, it was nothing but college kids down there, and none of them ever bothered to get up before noon unless they had a morning class.

Once, Chuck had kept up with his kill count. That had been a long time before, when he'd killed enough people that he could still count them on both hands. After that it had all gotten a little bit blurry. Couldn't blame a guy for losing count, especially when he wasn't even sure all the bodies had been found. They definitely hadn't all been linked with him, at least not yet.

He thought about it a few seconds, running the numbers through his head, before mumbling in her ear, "More than ten. Less than twenty. Split it down the middle, we'll call it fifteen." Fifteen sounded like a good number. He could start counting up from there again, if he really decided he wanted to.

The hall was nice and quiet, so he didn't worry as much about anybody overhearing, or thinking that Aubrey talking to a doll was weird. Sure, they could take care of it if someone did, but again with not shitting where you ate. Chuck had already made one kill here. Wouldn't do to get too much police attention to the building.

"Lot of people," Aubrey commented quietly, something tightening pleasantly in her stomach; sort of like when she got herself off, but... not. With him so close to her ear it was almost easy to forget she wasn't talking to a doll. She wondered what he'd looked like before.

Aubrey pulled her keys out and unlocked her door, pushing it open and stepping inside before kicking it shut. She glanced at her answering machine, wondering if the blinking red number one had been there last night and she'd just missed it. She set Chucky down on the floor and pressed play, dumping her bag next to the small table it sat on.

 _"Hey, it's me,"_ Dylan's pre-recorded voice said. _"Are you home...? Aubrey, please pick up the phone."_

Aubrey blinked slowly as she stepped out of her boots, then started laughing.

 _"Why won't you talk to me? Are—are you at work? I guess I'll try the other number. I love you."_

It hurt so much, but Aubrey kept laughing as the machine informed her that was the end of her messages and the number reset to zero.

"I'll be out in twenty minutes," she snickered, heading for the bathroom.

Christ…. whine, whine, bitch, bitch. The world really was better off thanks to Chucky killing that annoying bag of dicks. Heh, yeah, he guessed he could up his ‘official' kill count to sixteen already, he hadn't even been counting that guy. It had been almost too _easy_ to count, but he was going to claim it, anyway.

And yeah, Aubrey liked that he'd killed a lot of people. She hadn't sounded disturbed about it, like she was rethinking whether she wanted to be involved with this. She was into it, and Chuck was thinking that his plan to impress her with what he could do was off to a great start. Sure, it was harder to kill as a doll than it was as a man, but that should make it even more impressive, shouldn't it? As a man, he could get so much more creative than bashing a guy in the face until he stopped moving. He'd have more strength. More reach. He could do something really gruesome. Aubrey would like that.

He waved her off when she headed for the bathroom. "Take your time." Not really. She'd know, though. She'd be looking forward to whatever they might do together, he thought.

While she was showering, he took the chance to wander through her apartment, poke through the things that were out in the open. Sure, he didn't think he'd find something that said ‘baby killer' there, but he found enough traces, this second time visiting, that she wasn't your average girl. The lack of personal pictures was a dead (ha) giveaway, he thought. No connections. Very little value in most people. Oh, yeah, she was like him, more than she was like the rest of those kids she went to college with.

The shower turned off after ten minutes, and Aubrey came out in a towel after another five, makeup on and hair towel dried as much as it could get. Her phone rang while she dug clothes out (a cropped, sleeveless turtleneck that would hide most of the damage and a pair of jeans), someone named Mallory leaving an anxious message asking if Aubrey was okay.

She walked out for the tail end of it as she brushed her hair, leaning against the back of the couch.

 _"—photocopied my Lit notes for you, and James is gonna take care of Econ. No one expects you back at school this week, so I doubt any of the teachers'll be on your ass when you come back. You are coming back, right...? God, I can't_ believe _... Anyway, anyway, call me when you're feeling up to it, okay?"_

The machine beeped and Aubrey tossed her brush onto the coffee table. She'd never understand why that chick liked her so fucking much. She checked her pockets to make sure she had everything, then pulled her coat on. It was still cold out, and usually she'd dry her hair more, but she didn't want to hang around her apartment for ages.

"Alright, man, let's go. We're on 11th and Cherry. What bus am I taking?"

It took a moment for Chuck to orient himself, and remember what buses would be running where, but he figured it out with the ease of a longtime resident. "Okay, you're gonna take…"

He directed Aubrey bit by bit, where to get on, where to get off, which buses to switch to once they got there. The further along the plan got, the happier he was that he wasn't trying to do this with Andy. There was no way the kid would have navigated the system as easily, or as without comment, as Aubrey. People eyed them, sure, but it might have been that the ring of dark bruises around Aubrey's throat scared them off, or that they thought she was some crazy lady replacing a kid with a doll, but they tended to look away almost as quickly as they looked at her. Not looking away would have meant that they had to worry about who she was, or if she was okay. Beauty of the city was that nobody wanted to give a fuck about that.

Soon enough, they were in front of the shitty little house where he had a feeling Eddie would have holed up. Chuck brought them to a halt across the street from it. "First stop of the day. You're gonna want to stay back." There was only so much that Chuck could do, as a doll. It had worked, against Aubrey's dumb ex, but Eddie was jumpy. He'd be expecting somebody to be after him. The cops, of course. Not Charles, not the guy he thought was dead and gone and nothing to worry about.

"This little rat bailed on me when he was supposed to be my getaway." Chuck wanted Aubrey to understand why this was important. More important than his body. "He deserves something really special."

Aubrey could respect that. She didn't care about much, but seeing shit through? That mattered, and whoever this guy was deserved whatever he got.

"No problem," she agreed, eyeing the the run down crapshack. "Just tell me what you wanna do." It didn't matter that she didn't know Eddie from a hole in the ground. It didn't matter that she knew he was about to die. All that mattered was whether or not she got to watch the little cunt get what he had coming to him. Idly, she wondered how all of this would have played out if Chucky had wound up with anyone else but her.

"Gotta figure out if he's in there, first." Chuck was almost willing to guarantee that he was, that he hadn't moved on yet. Eddie had never been the brains of the operation, had he? He wouldn't be smart enough to keep on the move in case someone knew about his bolt holes and ratted him out.

Chuck couldn't tell that from where he was, though. "Thought I might make it look like an accident." Not his usual style, but it was desperate times. "He's a jumpy little rat. If I scare him good, he might do me a favor and take himself out with a few nudges." It was easy, planning how Eddie was going to die. Planning a death wasn't hard anymore, after you'd done it enough times. Planning a creative one… that took skill.

Of course, Aubrey hadn't been around enough of them that she needed something flashy to get her attention. Aubrey was just going to be glad to be included, ease that itch under her skin.

Chuck started easing forward. "Stay here. I'll be back."

Chucky was gone for a while and, at first, Aubrey didn't think anything of it. Then she started to wonder if maybe he'd overestimated his own abilities in a body he really wasn't used to.

Of course, _that_ was right before the fucking house exploded.

She wasn't sure if that had been the plan or not—or if he'd even made it out—until she saw him, unharmed and leaving the scene of a crime literally no one would be able to prove, even if they'd seen it with their own eyes.

"Real subtle," Aubrey joked dryly, moving to pick Chucky up quickly before anyone could come out to see what was going on and wound up eyeballing a walking doll. The neighborhood was shady as fuck, though, and anyone nosy enough to come out probably wouldn't bother to tell the cops if they noticed anyone hanging around.

Even so, Aubrey started walking away quickly, pulling the hood on her coat up as she did. She wondered if he was still alive alive in there, writhing and screaming as he burnt to a crisp. Even if she didn't get to see it, it was an oddly pleasing thought—as long as he didn't somehow pull through.

Whatever. If he did it wouldn't be too hard to kill some half dead motherfucker laid up in a burn ward. Not like anyone would believe him if he told what had happened anyway.

"What happened?" she asked quietly after crossing the street and turning the corner.

It had been almost insultingly easy, once Chuck got inside. He'd really thought that it would take more cleverness than that, killing in this pathetic new body, but it hadn't, once he'd started. The fucker had a gas stove and a gun, a child could have thought of what Chucky had ended up doing. The important thing was, though, that Eddie had died terrified, and as far as anyone could prove, by his own hand. Anyone who knew Eddie would believe it, wouldn't they? That paranoid little ferret forgetting he'd left the stove on while he went to investigate a noise—probably a rat, people would say, if they bothered wondering what had happened at all. No one missed guys like Eddie. They came cheap.

He let Aubrey pick him up without a fight, dignity be damned. They had to get out as fast as they could, even if no one would ever think that a girl and a doll had anything to do with what had happened in that house. Next to her ear, he chuckled quietly at her joke. Subtle it was not, she had that right. Yet, at the same time, probably Chuck's most subtle kill, to date.

"Guess he forgot he was cooking," he whispered to her. "Gotta be careful, when you're going to go around shooting your load at every little noise." Rest in pieces, motherfucker. Tiny, burning pieces.

They needed to get to the voodoo guy next, but they were off in sort of the right direction, at least. He'd fine tune them when they got to a place where what route Aubrey chose actually mattered by more than a couple of minutes difference in when they got there. Right then, their most important destination was ‘the fuck out of there'.

Aubrey laughed quietly, that pleasant (but somehow muted) feeling coiling and settling in the pit of her stomach again. It was a feeling she could definitely get used to.

Once they had a couple of blocks between them and the house Aubrey slowed down a little, adjusting her grip on Chucky. The bus was always slower than driving, but they still had plenty of time. It wasn't even noon yet, which gave them a nice big window before she even needed to start thinking about catching buses back to the other side of town.

"Where're we going next?" she asked, assuming he'd want to go ahead and see the other guy too; the one who'd taught him how to keep himself alive. It was weird, she thought idly, that Chucky was almost warm against her side when he was made of plastic and rubber.

"Not far." None of Chuck's acquaintances were on what you'd call exactly the good side of town, like that should be any surprise to Aubrey. She knew what he was, even if she didn't know _who_ he was. Just like no one cared about guys like Eddie, no decent people wanted to hang out with guys like Chuck. Decent people were boring anyway.

He gave her the next set of directions, to his old teacher's house. Wouldn't John be surprised to see him? Not the good kind of surprise, but that was just John. It was a tossup whether he'd even be willing to tell Chuck how to get his body back or not. 

That was just fine. Chuck know where John kept all of his toys. The guy was always too trusting. He'd never have moved the goods.

It had been a while, but Chuck still recognized the neighborhood. "Just around the corner here."

## 006\. THAT VOODOO YOU DO

It definitely should have been stranger; carting a doll around the city so he could... _run errands_. Maybe she should have been having a mental breakdown or something, even, but it didn't even register to Aubrey anymore. After the initial shock of the whole impossible situation had worn off, it had sort of just... become a thing. The kid's doll was alive and he was just like her. Er, more or less.

And that was the thing, wasn't it? She'd always felt so wrong; so alone and alienated. For good reason, she guessed, but knowing someone else who felt the same way she did made it feel like she didn't have to wander around so aimlessly anymore. Pointlessly doing what society expected her to do with very little payoff. None that mattered to _her_ , anyway.

"Want me to drop you off again?" Aubrey asked, then sneered at a woman as she walked by, staring at her like she was thinking about crossing the street just to avoid the crazy girl with the doll. " _What_ , bitch?"

Maybe it would have been smarter to keep Aubrey out of this one, but the truth was, whatever Chuck needed to do to get back in his own body, he was going to need help. Sure, Aubrey might still turn around and stab him in the back, but she was the best chance that Chuck had, wasn't she? Besides, John might be more likely to actually cooperate if there was someone else there to think about. Someone he might think was an innocent that Chuck was threatening into doing what he said.

"No, I think there's someone I want you to meet." Chuck stayed still against her ear until the nosy bitch stopped looking at them, then pulled back. "Can you play the innocent little victim again? A little scared?" Someone that Chuck could have taken advantage of. The marks on her neck and face couldn't have been done by Chuck's hands, but John might not think too much about it.

He turned his head to look at the right door. "That's it. Remember, you're scared of what I might do to you if you tell me no." 

"Yeah, man," Aubrey agreed easily. "I can do that."

To say Aubrey felt nothing would be a lie—she was very capable of feeling. She just didn't think it was the same way everyone else did. She could get angry and scared just fine. Maybe being sad wasn't something she was overly familiar with, but she knew what it was supposed to look like. That, mostly, just replaced itself with a sort of anxious listlessness. She loved music; felt joy over certain things (like watching a doll beat someone to death until his skull was misshapen and his teeth were lodged in the back of his throat.) She felt a sometimes confused sort of lust. She wasn't exactly sure what love was or if she could feel it, but she wasn't _empty_.

Her pieces were just put together wrong.

Aubrey made her way up to the house, thinking about that suffocating, angry, hopeless feeling that had coursed through her with that dumb motherfucker on top of her; hands around her throat. She'd been absolutely sure she was going to die, and the feeling was still fairly fresh in her mind.

She pulled her hood down (there was no need to look shadier than she already did just for the fact that she was a grown woman toting a Good Guy doll around) and then knocked.

The man who answered the door looked exactly like you'd expect a guy selling voodoo tricks to look like. Sure, most of it was probably put on for the customers, but it was almost comical how stereotypical it was. Couldn't let anyone forget he was the wise voodoo man, could he? He looked Aubrey over, forehead creasing in confusion at the doll in her arms.

Chuck had wondered if John would be able to tell that it was him in the doll body. He could at least tell something was wrong, Chuck thought. That something about the doll was off. More than that, he couldn't tell. John was playing it close to his chest.

After that long, slow look over, eyes focusing longer on her throat, John stepped aside. "Whatever business you have here, I think it would be better for you to come inside."

"Thank you," Aubrey whispered tightly as she hurried to get inside. Trusting son of a bitch, wasn't he? He'd probably regret that in a few minutes. She held onto Chucky as she turned to look at the man, brows drawn together just slightly. "He told me to come here..."

Who 'he' was she didn't say. Like it was just too much to say.

She was realizing more and more lately how good she had it, being who she was. She was so thin that, even being a taller girl, she just looked so _fragile_. Like she couldn't hurt another person even if she wanted to.

John's reaction couldn't have been more on cue for their little game if Chuck had planned it. Knowing John as well as he did, he guessed he kind of had. The door swung closed behind Aubrey, closing them in away from the rest of the world, as he watched the fragile, fey girl in front of him, eyebrows drawing together. "He?" His eyes darted to the doll in her arms again.

There was Chuck's moment. He turned his head to look at John, lips stretching into the kind of smirk you would never see on a child's toy. "Hi, Johnny boy. Remember me?"

There was the shock and disgust he'd expected. He might be in a doll, but Chuck's voice sounded the same. He doubted John Simonsen would ever forget his voice. " _You_." He sounded surprised. Hadn't he realized exactly how useful everything he'd taught Chuck would be?

"That's right. You know who I am. I bet you know what I want, too." Chuck bared his teeth. "And you know what I'll do if you don't give it to me, don't you?"

"You're an abomination..." John murmured, staring at what he had ultimately helped create. It wasn't how his teaching was meant to be used; it was _never_ supposed to be this way...

Aubrey would guess he was at least thinking about running since he was the one closest to the door. But he seemed like he was too decent a fucking person for his own good, and with her there she didn't think he was going to even if he wanted to. Which made him a fucking moron, but she couldn't hold it against him too much—it did work in their favor, after all.

"Please just give him whatever he wants," she asked softly. And, just in case he needed a little extra nudge in the right direction, "Please. He's my little brother's doll."

Oh, nice touch there. The protective older sister, just looking out for the kiddie. John would eat that one right up and come back for more. He wanted to believe people were good. Chuck reached up and grabbed a fistful of Aubrey's hair, made like he was going to pull it. "How do I get out of the doll, John?"

"I can help," John told Aubrey. "I can help you get rid of him. I have friends…"

Chuck pulled Aubrey's hair, not hard enough to actually hurt as long as she played along with it instead of making things difficult. "It's too late for that, John." He didn't have much strength in his arms, but close as he was, at the angle he was at, he could fake it. "What do you think I can do to her before your friends get here?" Oh, he might call Chuck's bluff, but he doubted it.

Aubrey had been anticipating the pull, but she acted like it hurt anyway so that it looked like it hadn't. She'd be lying if she said she didn't wonder sometimes if Chucky would try to kill her after he had what he wanted, but now definitely wouldn't be the time to do it if he _was_ planning on trying.

Still... He'd saved her ass before he'd even had anything to gain from it, so it was more just idle thoughts than a real worry. If he did she'd deal with it, but she didn't think he would.

" _Please_ —" Aubrey begged. "He's already killed two people. Just tell him."

It went against everything he stood for, but what choice did he have...?

Nice touch, bringing up the killing. John wouldn't risk Chuck killing a kid, or a girl. If he thought they were in real danger, he'd spill. Chuck expected him to have some kind of trick up his sleeve, but he'd just deal with that when he came to it. For the moment, Aubrey had his back. If that changed, hopefully it wouldn't be until after Chuck had his body back. "What's it going to be? Tell me the secret, or I'll break her neck."

"Stop. Stop, I'll tell you." John's face was damn near tragic. Chuck figured he'd gotten the guy between a rock and a hard place. Not like he felt bad about it. "You must speak the words again, over the body of the first person you revealed your true self to."

Mystic mumbo jumbo. Couldn't they ever say it straight out? "You mean the first person I let know I was alive?" Shit, that would be Andy. Aubrey wasn't going to help him get away with that.

"No, your true self." There was a little of the face John had always worn when Chuck was his student, the one that meant he thought Chuck was missing something that should have been obvious. "Your true name."

That would still be... wait, no. Chuck thought back to all the times he'd talked to Andy, to Aubrey. "I haven't. I haven't told anyone my name." Did that mean Chuck could just go pick some poor schmuck off the street, tell him his name, and then take his body? Not a bad deal. Maybe Aubrey would help him pick one she liked.

John had other ideas. "Then there's still time."

Slowly, hand still gripping Aubrey's hair, Chuck leaned closer to his former teacher. "Time?"

"To return to your true body."

That... sounded like a pretty good deal to Aubrey, actually. Both options did, honestly, but being able to take his own body back? That just sounded like a lot less hassle. No running around trying to find the right one—then _abducting_ the right one... Not to mention that undecided 'right one' was a completely unknown factor in any potential plans. Yeah, dealing with a corpse just seemed like it would go a whole lot smoother in the long run. She just hoped Chucky had some idea of where his body was.

"H-how do we do that?" she asked meekly, trying to look an appropriate mix of confused and disgusted by the whole thing. Actually, though, this was some pretty useful shit. She had to wonder if she'd be able to get Chucky to teach her all this once he was more... _mobile._ After all, like anyone else, the last thing she wanted to do was fucking die. Unlike anyone else, she was willing to stoop a lot lower to get out of it.

If Chuck could choose, he would choose his own body any day. He was used to it. He knew how it worked. And hey, Aubrey had thought it was attractive, even if she didn't know it was him. If getting his own body back was something that John would suggest, it had to be pretty squeaky clean. Too bad. "Tell me, or the body I take will be her kid brother's." Like Chuck wanted to be six again… but the threat? The threat was good.

"No, I'll…" John swallowed. "You have to recover your body. You'll need… the tool, the tool you used the first time, you'll need it again. And it takes… a blood sacrifice." He was quick to add, "A goat. Or a chicken, even, though a goat will be… more powerful."

Yeah, Chuck didn't like the sound of that. "And what if it isn't ‘powerful' enough?" There had to be some sort of catch.

Reluctantly, eyes on the hand Chuck had fisted in Aubrey's hair, John told him, "If the sacrifice isn't powerful enough, the body will not be restored. You were killed. You've been buried, you're beginning to decompose. There's damage to be repaired. A goat…"

"Oh, don't worry." Chuck grinned, broad and nasty. "I know just the right sacrifice for the job." After all, if a goat would be good, a man would be better, and Chuck still had one more person to pay back. "Teach me the ritual."

## 007\. THE MEASURE OF A FREAK

Aubrey took a hit from her joint before setting it in the makeshift ashtray so she could start pumping more lotion into her hand. She wouldn't really call herself a _pot smoker_ ; not really. More that her back was still fucking killing her after being tackled by a goddamn ex-football player. Every time it twinged or cramped up she just pictured Chucky beating Dylan's bullshit face in. It wasn't much of a pain reliever but it _sure_ made her feel better.

The news had ended almost two hours ago, but she was still thinking about it. They'd covered Eddie Caputo's death, which had gone from amusing to eye opening in just minutes, when they flashed that same mugshot of the Lakeshore Strangler again; Charles Lee Ray. She hadn't even thought of it until then. They had just been a news stories she hadn't really been watching when they were on, but it all came together so neatly now, didn't it.

That was him; Charles Lee Ray was Chucky. Being able to put a face to him—a _real_ one—was oddly satisfying.

God, she was stoned.

They'd gotten back in plenty of time to keep Karen from noticing that they were gone, and then Aubrey had left. Not right away. Karen had fussed over her first, made sure she was really okay to be left on her own. She was so _nice_ , wasn't she? So fucking nice, and as much as it made Chuck want to grit his teeth, part of him was actually glad that he hadn't had to kill her. He'd considered it. Of course he'd considered it, but that would've left the kid in foster care or something, and no guarantee that his doll would be given the position of honor that Chuck had as a prized gift from mommy. It was really better for everybody that Aubrey had come along, and Chuck hadn't been put into a position where Karen had noticed something wrong and he'd had to take the bitch out.

On nights when Aubrey wasn't there, Chuck got tucked into bed with Andy. The kid hugged and kissed on him like the friend he thought Chuck was. It was a little creepy, with Chuck being a grown man, but kids didn't have that kind of boundary, and no one but Aubrey knew what was in the doll's brain. Nobody else needed to, as far as Chuck was concerned, now that they knew how to get him back into his body where he belonged. No solid plan, but hey, it was a start.

Chuck laid in Andy's bed and thought about it for as long as he could, eyes fixed on the ceiling. They had to get to New Jersey, where his body had been buried, but that was too long a trip to rely on public transportation, especially if they had to find some kind of sacrifice. There was a lot to do, and Chuck wasn't getting any of it done laying in bed with a six-year-old boy.

Creepy.

He knew where Aubrey's apartment was, and how to get there. It was harder on his own, but Chuck was getting better at managing his doll body—not something that he wanted to be true, but he was able to get the door unlocked and get out, leaving it open behind him. Chuck was the scariest thing in the apartment complex. He doubted that anything would happen if he left it unlocked while he was gone.

No one was using the elevator, at this hour, and he was just tall enough to hit the buttons he needed to get down to the right floor. Thank fuck, because the stairs would have taken him long enough to be a real pain in the ass. He remembered Aubrey's apartment number, even if it was harder to check them from down low without walking all the way across the hall so he could crane his head up enough to look. He found it, though, and rapped on the door as hard as his tiny knuckles could.

Aubrey glanced up and frowned slightly. She was high as hell, but she wasn't _stupid_. It was late, and no one ever came to her place without calling first. She wiped the lotion that was left on her hand onto her thigh as she got up, crossing the room to look out the view hole.

There was nothing there.

And then it dawned on her and she snorted quietly, unlocking the door and looking down as she opened it. "Fuck, man. Get in here before someone sees you," she said with a small, hazy laugh, checking the hallway quickly.

It was actually kind of weird seeing him now, when she had the connection in place. Granted, she was also on drugs, so it could have just been that.

Something about Aubrey wasn't quite right, not quite normal, but Chuck figured it out quickly enough once he stepped inside the apartment. He knew what weed smelled like, he just hadn't thought Aubrey would be into it. There was a lot he didn't know about Aubrey, though, wasn't there? Chuck just had to hope it wouldn't come back to bite him in the ass.

He'd never smelled it on her before, though, which probably meant that it wasn't going to be a problem. If it was, Chuck would handle it. He was the one with experience, here.

He moved past her, and to the couch, letting her shut the door behind him. Looked like they weren't going to be getting any plotting done that night. That was fine, it was still better than being stuck in that apartment while Andy and Karen slept, peaceful as lambs. "This time of night? No one who saw me would believe that they were really seeing it, anyway." They'd be stoned out of their minds, wouldn't they? Or drunk on exhaustion. They'd think it was something they'd made up.

Climbing onto the couch, Chuck made himself comfortable, leaving the spot with the ashtray for her. Hey, she'd invited him in instead of telling him to get out. That meant he was a guest, and he got to make himself comfortable. Besides, once you'd been naked in a place, there really wasn't any formality left.

"Fair enough," Aubrey said as she locked up. She went back to the couch and took up her spot again, taking another hit off the joint before putting it out. Hey, she'd paid for it—she might as well get some use out of it.

"God, I don't know how people do this shit every day," she muttered, smoke tumbling out with her words. "I'm on the fuckin' _ceiling_ right now.

"So what's up?" Aubrey asked as she settled back into the cushions, going back to lotioning her legs before she could manage to drift away and forget that's what she'd been doing in the first place. "Get sick of your sleepover?"

"Kid's a cuddler." Something that Chuck was sure Aubrey was aware of. He groaned and slumped on the couch, head leaning against the armrest. "And what the fuck is up with how early these people go to bed? The kid I get, but _her_?" Not that Chuck had planned on hanging out with Karen, anyway, but at least then there would have been some noise in the apartment, and…

Honestly, he'd gotten used to Aubrey's company. Too bad it would have looked weird for her to take the kid's doll home with her. Even if Andy had offered, on Chuck's suggestion.

Maybe the mom was getting in his way after all, but it wouldn't be much longer.

He turned his head to look at her. "Got boring. Thought it might be more fun down here."

"Oh yeah, dude. Real party down here, right?" Aubrey joked dryly. Ugh, her mouth tasted like shit thanks to that pot. "Watched the news, shaved my legs. Next? I _might_ even eat leftover Chinese."

People thought it was weird that she didn't go out to parties, or any of that other shit, but she could live with that. It was 'weird' but it wasn't alarm bells levels of weird. Whatever; she did enough. Not that any of what she did was what she _wanted_ to be doing...

"Caputo was on the news," she commented with a small smirk, stretching out to lay on her stomach. Propping her chin in her hand put her eye to eye with Chucky. God, those fucking eyes. If there'd ever been any doubt, seeing that startling, clear blue would have stomped it out then and there.

"So were you," Aubrey added. "Not..." She gestured vaguely to Chucky's temporary body. "But y'know."

More of a party than it had been upstairs. At least Aubrey was awake. Chuck snorted, but shot a quick glance down at her legs. What? A guy could look.

It was instinct to grimace at Eddie's name, now, but then Chuck remembered that they'd taken care of that problem and it turned into a grin, instead, sharklike as his tiny mouth could handle. Of course it had been on the news. Chuck was still kind of a big deal, right now, wasn't he? And his escaped partner being blown up, that made good news. Served the fucker right.

He wasn't sure what she meant, with the words and the gestures, but he could guess what it had to do with. She'd seen the news. Maybe she'd worked out who he was. He worried, for a minute, if that meant that getting his body back wouldn't work… but nah, he hadn't done anything to reveal himself, not really. As long as he didn't confirm it… "You don't want me to answer that."

True enough. She didn't. He didn't, either. Chuck could think of better ways to experience Aubrey's body than having to take it from her.

"No," Aubrey snorted. "What, do I look stupid?" Stoned, sure. Stupid? _Please._ She knew and she didn't need Chucky to tell her she was right. She leaned in a little and whispered, "No offense, but your other ride is better," then snickered as she laid her head down, meaning to get the cushion and settling it in Chucky's lap instead. Moving seemed like a lot of effort, so she didn't bother.

She was quiet for a moment, brain fuzzy but still buzzing; skin still itching, like it always did. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Finally, Aubrey laughed. "My only friend's a _doll_ ," she said, staring lazily at the back of the couch since that's the way her head was pointed.

" _Are_ we friends?" she asked, lifting up a little so she could look at him. Aubrey wasn't completely sure she'd know a friend if it was staring her right in the face. Plus there was the whole she-didn't-know-if-he-planned-on-killing-her thing.

Having Aubrey's head in his lap bothered him a hell of a lot less than being in bed with Andy. Aubrey was a grown woman, who understood that Chuck was a grown man in a doll's body. She could make that choice. Andy might know he was real, sure, but he didn't understand that Chuck was an adult, or that it was… inappropriate. And Chuck didn't talk about things being inappropriate much.

It startled him when Aubrey called him her friend, at first. Chuck didn't have many friends. He had associates, accomplices. He had fascinations. Obsessions, maybe. Friends? Mostly, those were for other people. Of course, Aubrey was kind of special, wasn't she?

There was a stretch of silence while he thought about it, looking at Aubrey's face. Then, he shrugged, told her, "Sure." Sure, they were friends. It was probably the closest that Chuck was ever going to get to one, wasn't it? Might as well take advantage while he had her there. Besides, there was nothing to say that he couldn't be her friend now and then talk her into more once he had the ‘ride' she liked so much better back.

"Huh," Aubrey said after a moment. Actually, now that she thought about it, it was weirder that she had a friend at all than it was that said friend was a child's toy. She laid her head back down, not sure if she wanted to take a nap or not.

"Hey, do you know where your body is?" she asked. It almost certainly wasn't in the city morgue anymore. Christ, she hoped they hadn't cremated it. Wouldn't be much to bring back _then_ , would there? At least there was a backup plan in place.

Apparently it was as simple as that. Huh. Chuck was pretty sure that wasn't how friendship worked for normal people, but he and Aubrey were the opposite of normal, weren't they? He guessed this was a pretty valid way to become friends with someone. If not, it wasn't like there was anybody who was going to tell a pretty girl and a killer doll any differently.

The topic change took him a little off guard, but not much. It wasn't like Chuck hadn't been thinking about it all night, while he was trapped playing happy family with Karen and Andy. "New Jersey." At least Chuck had managed to hear enough to know that. "They buried it. In…" Chuck couldn't remember the name of the cemetery, but he'd recognize it if he heard it. "A cemetery in Hackensack, New Jersey."

"Fuck," Aubrey groaned, laughing quietly. " _Jersey_?" Could be worse, she guessed. Could be _Kentucky_. Still. New Jersey. It was a pit _and_ it was far. She'd have to check a map to figure out drive times, but she'd definitely guess more than ten hours.

She thought about it for a minute, brain working just fine, if a little sluggishly. Once she'd pieced everything together, she said, "I know someone who's got a car they pretty much never use. I'm sure they'll let me take it out of town if I kick something their way." She figured twenty bucks and some pills would do it.

That just left the sacrifice. She didn't really know what Chucky had in mind for that; if they were just going to pick someone up off the street in Jersey or...

"Does it have a trunk?" Sure, they could just pick up someone random, but Chuck had been diligent enough in his lessons with John that he knew that a sacrifice had more power when it was meaningful. Some random schmuck who happened to be at the wrong place, at the wrong time was good enough, but someone that Chuck had some kind of connection to, that would be better.

That meant it was time to pay good old Mike a visit and pay him back for those bullets he'd put in him. Chuck might not have been able to take on a police officer in the body he was in, but Aubrey? She'd been good bait, so far. Chuck didn't figure she'd have any problems with luring Mike in and taking him out. Then they'd just have to tie him up, get him in the trunk. He'd keep until New Jersey.

No need to elaborate on the plan yet, though. Not until he knew if the car had a big enough trunk.

"Are there cars that don't have trunks?" Aubrey laughed. Maybe it was a little funnier than it should have been. "Yeah, it has a trunk, dude," she clarified, lifting her head again. She grinned and added, "And _wheels_ , and seats, and a gas tank..."

And a cassette player that worked, thank fuck. Like hell she was driving that far with nothing but a radio and new stations to scan through every few miles.

Yeah, yeah, smartass. Chuck sighed and rolled his eyes. "Does it have a _big_ trunk?" Yeah, maybe he should have known to be more specific with the drunk girl. "A big enough trunk that you could fit a person into it?" That was the real question. Not all trunks were big enough, were they?

If he'd been thinking about it, he'd have been relieved at the cassette player, too. There wasn't anybody that Chuck could imagine being stuck in a car with for that long without music, not without wanting to kill something. He wouldn't be able to do any of _that_ until they got to the cemetery.

It was hard not to keep laughing—Good Guy dolls looked _hilarious_ when they were annoyed—but she managed not to; barely.

"Oh, oh yeah, totally," Aubrey replied. "It's a pretty big car; Seville, I think. Some kind of Cadillac. Bringing someone with us?" Made sense, especially if Eddie wasn't the only one Chucky'd had a bone to pick with.

Even stoned she was already piecing together a list of things she'd need to do before they left. There were things they'd need to have on hand, for starters. Maybe it was weird, that she was going to all this trouble when nothing was really in it for her, but...

When was she ever going to meet someone so much like her again? Maybe with him around she wouldn't feel like this anymore. Like Dylan's hands were around her neck all the time and she was fucking suffocating.

"Mike Norris." Chuck nodded, content with the size of the car. Yeah, they could fit Mike in that trunk. Knock him out. Tape his mouth shut. Only problem might be stopping to get gas, but they could pick gas stations out in the middle of nowhere. The kinds of places where no one was around. They'd just have to be careful, wouldn't they?

Chuck already knew what all supplies they'd need for dealing with good old Mike. He couldn't get them, though. He and Aubrey would have to put the list together, and she'd have to go shopping. Not buy them all together. She was a smart girl, she'd figure it out. She probably already _had_ it figured out, didn't she? She might have a kill fantasy all planned out, how she'd do it, a billion different ways she'd do it, just hadn't gotten around to it yet.

Chuck looked down at her head again. "He's a cop. We're going to have to plan it out, make sure none of his cop buddies are with him when we grab him." That, or kill the cop buddies as they grabbed him. Hey, the world could do with a few less cops, couldn't it?

"A cop, huh?" That was easy enough to figure out, wasn't it? It was probably the one who'd shot him. "No problem."

And it really wasn't; after all, what did she care if some cop got killed? Aubrey's limits on who she'd fuck over were very few; the kid, the kid's mom by extension, her old man. Chucky now, too, she guessed. As long as he didn't fuck her over first, obviously.

"We can just leave him in your grave after," she said, stifling a yawn. Take a body; leave a body. That really shouldn't have been so funny, but what could she say? Aubrey was just fucked up that way.

She stared at the stupid little sprayed on freckles on Chucky's face, eyes losing focus for a second. "You make me feel like so much less of a freak." Which wasn't to say she _wasn't_ a fucked up freak, but having someone else around who was just as bad made it feel like some kind of normal. Her own personal normal, at the very least. Like the itching in her skin had nothing to do with not feeling _comfortable_ in it anymore.

"Good plan." That way there'd just be a disappearance, not another dead body associated with Charles Lee Ray laying around. Chuck could get behind that. The disappearance would be suspicious enough, of course, but what could you do?

Chuck snorted. He made her feel like _less_ of a freak? In comparison to being a talking doll, sure, he could see it, but now she was the girl that hung out with a talking doll and was planning to murder a police officer with him. He was making her into an accessory to murder, for the second time. Most people would say that he was making her _more_ of a freak.

He got it, though. It was just funny, but he got it. After all, he'd never really met anyone like him before, either, anyone that did it because they enjoyed it. Sure, there'd been Eddie, but Eddie was a pussy. Eddie was in it for the money, for the profit. Eddie was weak.

Heh, he guessed… "You make me feel like less of a freak, too." Just the adult conversation would have done that, but this? This was even better.

## 008\. THE END IS NIGH

Aubrey's back felt _so_ much better. Who knew spending a night high and boneless on the couch would help so much? She certainly hadn't; she'd pretty much figured it would only help for the night and be right back to the same bullshit the next day. Small favors.

She still wasn't back to school yet (she'd decided not to bother until she'd been to Jersey), but she took a trip out that day since Karen's next shift wasn't until the next evening. The nice thing about hanging out with the group she did was that, even if she didn't particularly like any of them, most of them were on drugs. Which meant they knew where to _get_ drugs. One dealer in particular just so happened to only be moonlighting. During the day he was a nice, respectable veterinarian.

Who had no problem selling off a little bit of the animal hospital's stock here and there, for the right price. Thirty bucks got you a decent amount of acepromazine, Aubrey learned. Enough to knock out a grown man for a few hours and then some. If she timed stops right she'd be able to dope him back up again while he was still too groggy to do anything about it.

Which she told Chucky while Andy was in the bath that night, happily splashing away with his old Happy Meal toys behind a closed door.

Sure, Chuck had known that Aubrey was willing to plot with him, but he hadn't expected her to be willing to think about what needed to be done outside of their little powwows. He really hadn't expected her to take the kind of initiative, picking up something to drug Mike with, but she had and… honestly, it was kind of hot. Damn junkless doll body, he could have at least enjoyed jerking off over it. 

The kid seemed content in the other room. He'd probably be content for a while, splashing around in the bath. Chuck had never been more relieved than when his mom had made the call that Chucky couldn't go in the tub, thanks to his batteries. The ones that weren't actually in his back, but no one had caught on to that yet. Hopefully no one would. Shit, he should probably make sure that Aubrey got some batteries to put in the doll body when Chuck was done with it.

"That's good. That's going to help." It would keep him quiet through gas station stops, at least. "Doesn't matter if you overdose him, either. He just needs to live long enough to get there." It didn't matter to Chuck what kind of shape he was in, a blood sacrifice was a blood sacrifice, wasn't it?

"Figure I'll just double what the vet said gets you fucked up," Aubrey told him. "That should still give us enough for like five goes." She'd gotten needles too, but she assumed that went without saying.

"Aubrey...!" Andy called cautiously.

"Yeah?" she yelled back.

"I gotta go potty!"

Aubrey snorted quietly and rolled her eyes. "So... get out and go potty?"

"Oh. Okay!" As if it hadn't even occurred to him. _Kids._

"Anyway, total coincidence, but I actually ran into Min today at the store and asked her about her car, and she said she doesn't need it for anything she can't take the bus for. Told her I wanted to spend some time with my dad," Aubrey explained with a small shrug. "I was _very_ shaken up by the attack, you know. I'm just having _such_ a hard time."

Chuck snorted. Aubrey was about as delicate as a hatchet, but she really could play the part, couldn't she? If they ever got caught, everyone would be saying that she'd always seemed like such a _nice_ girl. Not that Chuck had any plans to get caught again. He'd learned his lesson about trusting weaseldicks like Eddie. Quality partners only, from then on.

"So we got the tranqs. We've got the ride. We've got choices on how we tie him up once he's tranqed." Chuck held up one finger. "We could get fancy and buy some rope for his wrists and ankles, and duct tape for his mouth. Or…" A second finger. "We could just use the duct tape for everything. Not like we care about if it hurts coming off." As far as Chuck cared, it could stay on even after they'd dumped the body into the grave. "Door number two is going to look less suspicious, at the checkout line." There were plenty of reasons that Aubrey could need duct tape.

That part would be easy. Aubrey had already taken care of the things that were going to be hard to pick up. It was how to bring it all together that they really had to worry about. "Now we need a plan. How are we gonna get Mike, the car, and the tranquilizers all in the same place?" Getting him on duty would be easiest, but it would also be noticed faster. 

"Fuck it; tape's cheaper," Aubrey said with a shrug. And worked just as well, at that. She wanted to plan on the cop helping her dig the fucking hole, but she knew she couldn't count on that for shit. He was gonna be high as a kite on the acepromazine—she wouldn't be surprised if he couldn't even spell his name. Which meant it was going to be on her and— _gloves_. She had to pick up a good pair of gloves from the hardware store when she got the shovel. No sense in wrecking her fucking hands.

As for how they were going to _grab_ the cop, Aubrey wasn't totally sure yet. She was wondering if she could get her hands on his card without showing up at the station. Maybe she could make someone call him about Caputo's death...

"What kinda cop is he?" she asked, sitting up a little. "He just get lucky with you, or is he one of _those_ guys. All go-getter and shit?" If he was the act-before-planning type she might be able to get him to meet without even thinking about it first; without remembering to tell anyone where he was going.

Easy enough decision, on that one. Tape _was_ cheaper, and it wouldn't take all that much to shut the cop's mouth. Might as well use the rest of the roll. Might not even _take_ the rest of the roll, but the more the better. The less he could move, the better off they'd be on their drive, and when Chuck started making the sacrifice… hunting knife. He'd have to remind Aubrey to get a hunting knife, something to carve him open with. It would have to be sharp. There wasn't much strength in Chuck's arms, not enough to work a dull knife in as deep as he'd need it.

"He's relentless." That was Mike Norris in one word. Chuck hadn't realized until it was too late that once Mike was on his case, it was going to be hard to shake him. Hell, even if Chuck hadn't decided to use Mike as his sacrifice to get his body back, he would've had to get rid of him to have any hope of living a nice, normal (for him) life in Chicago ever again.

Chuck thought about it, then told her, "He thinks that there's anything related to one of his past cases…" The one in question being Chuck's, obviously… "he'll come check it out. He isn't stupid, but he'll follow a lead until he reaches the end of it, and then keep tugging the thread until something comes loose." Mike was a good cop. That was the worst thing about him.

"Perfect," Aubrey said, reaching for her mostly empty Pepsi can. She made a face when she drained it, what little that was left lukewarm and flat. "That makes it easy."

It was already like she'd been doing this her entire life. Maybe somewhere in the dark recesses of her brain she had been.

She got up to toss her empty can, then dug out the phonebook from the hutch in the hallway. She didn't want to risk trying to get a direct line on him if it was as easy as checking the white pages. Normal, upstanding members of society had no problems being listed.

Aubrey dropped back down onto the couch, stretching her legs out as she flipping the book open, thumbing through it as she listened to Andy narrate some huge fight scene in the bathroom. And there it was, right after the Normans. There were two Norris, Michael listings, but one said Sr. and had a woman's name as well. Easy enough to pick the right one.

"Young guy?" she asked. He probably was. The ones who still tried usually were.

Chuck wasn't sure what Aubrey was considering ‘young', but yeah, he'd call Mike young. "About Karen's age," he told her. Closest he could estimate. He'd never been great at determining ages, beyond ‘likely to be legal'. "Find him?" He scooted over to look at the phone book over her arm, nodding when he saw the two names. "Yeah, he'd be junior. Probably married to the job." And too young to have a kid with his own listing in the phone book, anyway.

Easy. Aubrey was right, the getting him there would probably be easy. The rest of it… there was a lot that could go wrong, but how many other ways could you plan it? They called, he met them, Aubrey stuck him and shot him up with the tranquilizer. Taping him up would be easy, it was the getting him into the trunk that Chuck was worried about. Aubrey wasn't all that strong, either, was she? Of course, it wasn't like they cared about being gentle, as long as they got him in there somehow. Who cared if they bumped his head? It'd just keep him out longer.

"Call from a payphone," he told her, "arrange to meet up somewhere isolated." She'd probably thought of it, but just in case… "You can tell him you know something, but you're worried about who might be listening. Makes sense to want to meet alone, then." And it was the kind of damsel in distress story a sucker like Mike, a guy who liked being the hero, would fall for.

"Yeah, I was thinking the docks," Aubrey told him. "On the stretch where those factories shut down a few years back." Now, the majority of that area was all but a ghost town, save for a small stretch of it by the bridge where a homeless community had set up camp, but they'd have a bit of distance from that, and most bums weren't too interested in answering questions anyway.

Something thumped and a moment later Andy was wailing. Aubrey shot out of her seat, the phonebook landing on the carpet as she raced to the bathroom. Andy was sitting on the floor crying and holding his face. It didn't take a genius to figure out that he'd slipped on a patch of water while getting dressed.

She helped him get the rest of his pajamas on and picked him up, which wasn't nearly as easy as it had been when he was four, hauling him out to the living room with her. The toilet paper she'd given him to press against his forehead was already pretty soaked and he'd dripped blood onto the front of her t-shirt a little.

"Hold it on there," she reminded him. " _Hold it._ " The first aid kit was... in the pantry. Aubrey set Andy on the couch so she could go get it, returning quickly so she could start cleaning him up.

"I hit my head on the potty," he told Chucky mournfully. Aubrey couldn't help it; she started laughing—thankfully, that was really all it took to make a six year old forget they were in pain.

Chuck still wasn't used to having his planning sessions interrupted by six-year-old issues, but even he wasn't enough of a dick to suggest that Aubrey let the kid cry it out in the bathroom. There was nothing else they could do for the night, anyway, was there? It was all planned, all that Aubrey needed to do was the shopping, and then they'd be able to make the call and get started getting his body back.

Andy's explanation of what was wrong made him snicker, and he reached out a hand to pat the kid on the knee. "Happens to the best of us, little guy." It had been a long time since Chuck had bashed his head open on the ‘potty', but there'd been a couple of benders where he couldn't deny it had happened. 

That, for some reason, made the kid bizarrely happy. He picked Chuck up and pulled him into a hug while Aubrey started doctoring his head. "Do you cry when you bump your head?"

Uh, let's go with… "Sure. But you're a tough guy, right?" Chuck's dad had never been sympathetic when he'd hurt himself, as a kid, and Chuck knew that the last thing that he wanted to tell Andy was that if he was gonna cry, he'd give him something to cry about. Wasn't like he had any better examples of how a grown man should interact with a little boy, but at least he knew what not to do.

Andy nodded. "I'm a big boy." Not quite what Chuck had asked, but hey, good enough.

The cut wound up being the tiniest fucking thing Aubrey had ever seen, which was a relief, but still ridiculous considering how much he'd bled. Once she had him all fixed up, complete with a stupid ass Good Guy themed Band-Aid, he seemed to have all but forgotten about smacking his head against a hunk of porcelain. Kids were weirdly resilient. If _she'd_ busted her fucking head open she'd be pisseed about it all night.

Though, to be fair, she did have psychotically proportioned anger issues.

After Aubrey got Andy settled into bed for the night, a good two hours before Karen was supposed to be home, she settled back in on the couch, not bothering to put the kit back where it belonged. "Hey, you wanna go down to my place before Karen comes home?" It wasn't like she'd notice the doll wasn't there, and if she told Andy not to say anything she'd probably just assume he was in the closet.

Hey, it wasn't like Chuck had any reason to hang around, and they'd better take their opportunity for Aubrey to smuggle him out while she could. "Yeah, let's go." 

After all, they were getting close to the end.

## 009\. B.O.B.

Having to sit and wait while Aubrey took care of all the details was even more frustrating when he was alone at her place than when he had the kid to distract him, apparently. Chuck had spent the whole time she was gone pacing, wondering what had taken her so long before he checked the time and realized only a couple of minutes had passed since the last time he looked. Time had never moved so slowly before.

By the time he heard her key in the door, Chuck had already gone through all of her music several times, making his own selections for what he wanted to take on the road with them. It was, at least, something to do, even if it was less useful than getting duct tape, gloves, and a knife. They'd had plenty of time to talk after she'd come back down once Karen had gotten home, the night before. Work out all the last minute details, make sure they both knew what parts they were going to play.

He barely waited for Aubrey to get the door open before he was moving toward it. "Did you get it?" All of it. If there was a single piece missing, a single thing she hadn't been able to buy, they'd have to rethink the plan. And Chuck wasn't sure he had the patience for that.

"Nah. Y'know, I got to the store and I was like, 'Man, I think I'll just go get a bunch of blow instead,'" Aubrey drawled. The store bags on her arm said otherwise. And, y'know, the shovel that she currently didn't have a car to house it in yet. Dragging it around on the bus had gotten her surprisingly few looks, which almost made up for how annoying it was to have to cart it with her after her last stop.

She _really_ needed a car. She'd never cared much before—it was always school and home, and work, which was right upstairs—but now that she had _reasons_ to go out...

Aubrey set the shovel against the wall carefully so it wouldn't slide over and destroy her phone before sitting down on the floor with the rest of the bags. She tossed out the jumbo roll of duct tape and the thick gardening gloves she'd bought at Walmart. The shovel, she'd gotten at Lowes. Which just left the plain brown sack from the non-chain hunting store she'd gone to. She dumped that one too, leaving two pristine black folding knives on the carpet. Maybe they only _needed_ one, but Aubrey didn't see the harm in making sure they were both armed.

Unless, of course, it came back to bite her in the ass, but hey. Nothing ventured, blah blah blah.

"C'mere," she muttered, fishing in the bag from Walmart; she pulled out a pair of bright yellow batteries from the Good Guy shrine they'd had in the toy aisle. Maybe Chucky wouldn't be in there forever, but if Karen ever opened him up she'd think she was going insane.

"I'm gonna make you a _real boy_ ," she joked, eyebrows raising suggestively.

Sure, Chuck saw the batteries, he knew what she meant, but damned if there wasn't some useless twitching in his junkless crotch, his body trying its damndest to pop some kind of boner. That, he decided, was the most _frustrating_ part of this. Other parts were more inconvenient, sure, but for his body to not be able to show its appreciation of a hot girl making him a dirty offer, that was just cruel.

A few different replies popped into Chuck's head, since one couldn't pop in his brightly colored overalls. He discarded most of them, settled on, "Doesn't every girl want a battery operated boyfriend?" Not that he could be all that useful for that. Even if he'd had a dick, it would have been too tiny to do more than tickle. 

She had a good point, though. If he wasn't animating the doll anymore, it wasn't going to be doing much talking without batteries. That would just be embarrassing, to get so far with their plan without getting noticed or marked as suspicious, only to fuck up afterwards when Andy's mom realized the doll had been running without batteries. He sighed and started unfastening his overalls, abandoning the idea of admiring the knives until after Aubrey was done. 

He moved toward her, working on the second strap. "They sell a special brand of batteries for this shit? What a ripoff." He bet they were more expensive, too.

"Oh, did you want to join the collection?" Aubrey asked dryly. Not that she had a sex store under her bed or anything, but she wasn't _completely_ without. She'd had to have _something_ to make up for Dylan's complete lack of interest in the sack, hadn't she?

Aubrey tore the packaging open with her teeth, spitting out the little corner that stuck to her lip as she dumped the two D batteries into her palm. Maybe she was flirting. A little. Which was weird—more because Aubrey didn't _flirt_ and slightly less because she was flirting with a fucking doll.

"Right?" she snorted. "They were two dollars more than Duracell. They had fucking Good Guy _children's aspirin_. Welcome to America, land of the cash cow."

"Un-fucking-believable." Chuck shook his head, turning his back to her and starting to hike up the back of his shirt so she could get to the battery compartment. He wasn't exactly thrilled at the idea of having something put inside him, but maybe he'd be lucky and wouldn't even feel it. Or maybe it would be awful and distracting. It was a toss up, wasn't it? 

Truth was, the longer Chuck was in this body, the more it was starting to feel like his, and that meant he didn't know how he was going to react to things like having his back opened up and batteries stuck in it. Sure, he'd always been able to feel enough to know where his body parts were, but sensations were getting stronger, more detailed. Instead of pressure, he got pain.

That just made what they were doing more important. Karen would be just as suspicious if the doll body did things it wasn't supposed to be able to, just as much as she would over the lack of batteries. If Chuck bruised, or bled, when be got hurt, how could they hide that? 

So, yeah, he held still. He'd deal with the batteries if it meant getting the show on the road. "And, by the way? I'd be the star of the collection." 

"Oh, all guys say that," Aubrey said, huffing a laugh. She reached for the tab that held the battery panel shut, pushing it in with her thumb as gently as she could. She didn't know how any of this voodoo shit worked, so she wasn't sure what to expect when she opened it. For Karen's sake, she fucking hoped it was just battery connectors and plastic.

Aubrey pulled it back, relieved to see that the inside of the panel looked exactly like it should have, and set the piece aside on her knee for safekeeping. "Tell me if it hurts," she muttered, checking the first battery to make sure she had it positive end up before she settled a hand on Chucky's shoulder to keep him steady as she started slipping it into the lefthand slot.

It didn't feel _good_ , but after the first sting of the panel coming off, Chuck couldn't say that having his back opened up actually hurt. He felt it, the absence of a patch of skin, but it was like all the nerves had been stripped off with it. The area was numb, and that was what made it stick out in his awareness, like prodding at an empty space where a tooth used to be.

He hissed between his teeth as she slid the battery into place, but told her, "It's fine. Keep going." Just pressure, again, a weird, deep pressure. Chuck would take weird pressure over pain, any day.

Aubrey slid the second battery in and replaced the panel cover as carefully as she'd taken it off. Just because she _wanted_ to hurt people didn't mean she wasn't capable of being gentle. And she didn't really want to hurt Chucky anyway.

She tugged his shirt back down and held his overall straps over his shoulders for him so he wouldn't have to twist around like an idiot trying to grab hold of them. As funny as that would undoubtedly be; probably just as funny as when Andy did it, but with more swearing.

Still. That just seemed unnecessarily mean.

Once she knew he could take it from there, Aubrey picked up one of the knives and flipped it open with one hand, displaying the blade, which was a matte black as the handle. They were just small enough to be legal to carry, but that still left plenty of length to do real damage.

"Figured you might want one too," she said with a small smirk. There had been plenty of cheaper options that would have done the job, but these had caught her eye. The lack of metallic tone meant no glint; a lot harder to see, especially in the dark.

The panel going back on, that was when it started feeling really weird. And painful, that was when it got painful. Chuck bit out a curse, teeth gritted. He didn't blame Aubrey for the pain. Hey, it needed to be done, he couldn't go around with part of his back missing. 

He muttered a ‘thanks' when she held up the overall straps for him, started struggling his way back into being clothed. If everything went right, he'd have one, two more days in this body, tops. Then, no more worrying about detachable backs, batteries, clothes that made him want to murder whatever he could get his hands on… all of that shit he was sick of.

He joined her when he was done, picking up the knife she'd gotten for him. It was going to be tricky, figuring out where he could hide it on his tiny doll body, but for him? The knife was huge, more than big enough for what he'd need to do. Much bigger than that, and they'd be getting into awkwardness on the level of bashing a guy's face open with a poker. He opened it, took a few slashes at the air to get the feel for it, then lowered it with a nod. "You did good." 

That was everything, then. Everything but the car, and the call. Chuck grinned, pain and the lingering awkwardness of batteries inside his back forgotten.

Aubrey smiled slightly. She knew she had, of course, but it was nice to hear it, especially from one of the only people she could really say she respected. Most people were so fucking mindless. They did what they were expected to and lived their lives in on predetermined route, not because they had no other _choice_ , but because they were too comfortable to really _think_ about it. Meanwhile, the ones who didn't adhere to it usually just wound up overdosing on heroin.

She knew she hadn't been doing much more up until recently either, but that was all going to be different from now on.

"Can I ask you something?" Aubrey said after a moment. She leaned her back against the front door, resting the hand holding the knife on her knee.

Chuck glanced at her, not thinking much of it. They were coming up on the end of their plan. Sure, now was a good time to answer questions, before she had them in the middle of tranquilizing a police officer and shoving him in the trunk. "Sure." 

Not like he'd ever turned down her questions before.

In case it was something serious, he folded the knife back up and started trying to find a place to hide it that wouldn't be completely obvious when she was carting him along for the ride. 

"What's it feel like?" Aubrey asked, her knife clicking quietly as she pressed against the outside of the blade to slide it back in. "Killing someone."

She'd know soon enough, she knew that, and it might be different for him than it would be for her, but she still wanted to hear it. She was also curious to know if that familiar buzzing need to kill was _supposed_ to feel so much like wanting to get off, but she wasn't going to ask. She had more fucking social skills than that.

Fair question, Chuck guessed. Hard one to answer, but fair. He didn't think you could really understand how it felt until you actually did it, and he wasn't volunteering to give Aubrey her first practice right at the moment. "It feels…"

He shrugged, then tried his best to explain it, anyway. "It's a thrill. Adrenaline like you wouldn't believe. You're never closer to somebody than you are when you're killing them." You didn't really know someone until you saw them gasping out their last breaths. Or, maybe, until you saw them kill. "The more hands-on it is, the better it feels."

Aubrey could relate to that a hell of a lot more than the shit other people talked about. Sure, she didn't think there wasn't _anyone_ else out there like them, but they weren't here, were they?

## 010\. POLAROIDS

It seemed only fair to bring Chucky back up one last time before the doll he was in was just a piece of plastic again. Not that she was telling Andy any of that—she didn't want the kid to freak out and start crying and asking questions. He'd be better off without knowing beforehand. Kids were resilient. He'd probably bounce back by the end of the week.

So, after Karen left for work, she went back down quickly to get him, coming back to Andy poking around in the plastic store bags she hadn't had time to drop off before coming in earlier. Most of it was just the usual—a box of tampons, a folder with the notes and assignments she'd missed in her classes, a package of granola bars—but Andy was pulling out the bulky Polaroid camera she'd found at Salvation Army when she'd been digging around for some new (or, rather, old) records that morning. She didn't even know why she'd bought it, but she had, and she'd even picked up film for it while she was at the drugstore.

"Nosy," Aubrey snorted as she set Chucky down.

Andy slipped the camera strap around his neck and started looking through the viewfinder. "Can we take pictures?" he asked, looking at her through it.

Coming back to see the kid one last time was an idea that Chuck hadn't been sure on, but once he was there he forgot why not. Actually, he'd kind of missed the little guy. Not the hugs, or the constant stream of babble, but he could be kind of funny, sometimes. Case in point, his inspection of the things Aubrey had bought, wide eyed and innocently curious. Chuck wasn't sure if he'd ever been that innocent even when he'd been Andy's age. Of course, Andy didn't have a dad, which Chuck was pretty sure was an improvement over having one.

Chuck stuck on his feet and stretched as soon as Aubrey put him down, wandering over toward the kid. "What do you want to take pictures of?" There weren't many interesting things in the apartment to _get_ on camera, unless something had changed since Chuck had gone to stay with Aubrey until they could get on the road. 

The rest of the stuff in Aubrey's bags probably wasn't worth bothering with, or Chuck would have poked around, himself. He knew all the interesting things that Aubrey had bought, lately, after all, and she wasn't about to bring those around Andy.

"Mmm..." Andy thought about it as he watched Aubrey dig out the box of film. She glanced at the back, scanning the instructions before tearing the end open. "Us!" he finally decided.

"Aw, come on man. My neck's still all messed up," Aubrey protested, but she was just kind of glad he didn't want to take pictures of everything he owned; ten Polaroids definitely wouldn't cover that. Still, she looked like someone had just tried to kill her. Which, y'know. Was exactly what had happened.

"But we need pictures together!" Andy said, turning those big, brown eyes on her. "So do you and Chucky."

"What, why?" Aubrey laughed.

Andy looked at her through the viewfinder as he shrugged. "Because Chucky's your husband," he told her, as if it were obvious. Aubrey laughed so suddenly she almost choked.

" _What_?" she asked incredulously.

Andy seemed almost exasperated (as much as a six year old could be, anyway) as he lowered the camera and explained, "Well, Chucky sleeps with you now, and boys and girls don't live together until they're married." The _duh, Aubrey_ was heavily implied.

Chuck couldn't help himself. He started chuckling when Andy said that he was Aubrey's husband, because _what the hell_ , kid. Then Andy explained his reasoning, and Chuck laughed even harder. Of course. Perfectly logical, if you were six, he guessed. Someday, Andy would grow up enough to realize that there were a lot of things that men and women did together without being married. Until then, Chuck wasn't going to be the one to explain it to him. 

"Well, _sweetie_ , if the kid wants a picture…" Chuck was willing to play along with this. It was too funny not to. True, there was the matter of Aubrey's neck, but he was pretty sure they could get around that, or get over it.

Truth was, if what they were doing worked, and Chuck got his body back, the kid would be losing his best friend. Andy was too young to get it, and Chuck wasn't a nice enough guy to sacrifice his chances for a little boy's happiness. He was nice enough to make sure that the kid got a picture of his last real day with his friend, to remember it by.

He leaned in to Andy, like he used to when he was still only talking to him. "Hey, does your mom have a scarf or something that Aubrey could use to cover her neck for a picture?"

Andy scrunched his face up as he thought, then grinned, pulling the camera from around his neck so he could shove it into Aubrey's hands and run down the hall.

"Real nice, _honey_ ," Aubrey drawled. She had no idea what Andy was running off to do, but hopefully it wasn't something awful. "Now he's gonna go around telling people I married his _doll_."

By the time Aubrey had gotten the camera loaded up Andy was running back out, his arms full of scraps of fabric and chunks of knits. He unceremoniously dumped the pile in Aubrey's lap, looking proud of himself. "I found maybe _two hundred_ scarves; now you can look pretty in the pictures!"

Mostly, Karen dressed like a walking JC Penney ad, and Aubrey was sincerely doubtful she had anything that wasn't completely awful, but she picked through the tangled mess in her lap anyway to indulge Andy, pretending the pastels and sensible patterns didn't make her want to roll her eyes right out of her head. Near the bottom, though, was a grayish-blue silk scarf that wasn't so bad. At the very least it would match what she was wearing.

Yeah, Chuck had no doubt that the kid would make sure to tell everyone all about it… but he was a kid. They wouldn't believe that Aubrey had actually married his doll any more than they would have believed that he was alive in the first place. Chuck figured that, if he did, everyone would assume that she was just a good babysitter humoring the kid by letting him marry her off to a dumb piece of plastic. He just grinned at Aubrey, though, tucking his hands into the pockets of his overalls and not saying a word about it.

The pile of scarves that Andy brought back was as ugly as he'd expected. What could you expect? Someone needed to tell Karen that just because you _were_ a mom, it didn't mean you had to dress like one. He had a great time, though, holding up the ugliest ones he could find and suggesting them to Aubrey. Andy, of course, didn't know the difference between ugly and not ugly, so he was all too willing to agree with Chuck, if he said something was nice. Good times. Kids were useful, after all.

He was _almost_ disappointed when she found one that wasn't awful. Would have been funny, Aubrey immortalized in a picture with a baby pink scarf around her neck. "Gonna let the kid get his pictures now?" Chuck leaned against the couch, waiting to hear where exactly the kid wanted everybody.

"Yeah, yeah," Aubrey said as she set the scarves aside, rolling her eyes. She wasn't really what you would call a 'scarf' person, but it was only for a few minutes. And then she'd get Chucky back by convincing Andy his doll would look better wearing pretty stuff too; not like it would be hard.

"Can I take the first one?" Andy asked, excited. Aubrey explained how to work the camera, silently crossing her fingers that it wasn't busted. Not that she'd be surprised if it were, since they were usually pretty expensive and she'd gotten it at a secondhand store for twenty bucks. But when Andy took a test picture of his own feet, grinning when the camera whirred and the film ejected, she figured it was a safe bet that she'd just made a lucky buy.

"Hey, good job." Not that there was anything impressive about taking a picture of your feet, but Chuck figured it was a good thing that the kid just didn't drop it. "Now, get lots of pictures of Aubrey in her pretty scarf." Yeah, Chuck figured that she was probably going to get him back, but if everything went according to plan, he wouldn't be in this body to be embarrassed by whatever she did for very much longer, would he? It wasn't like she could show off the embarrassing pictures to anyone else.

And yeah, that was the only reason he was brave enough to give her shit about it.

Andy went through the film she'd bought in record time, painstakingly taking a few shots of Aubrey, and then one of Aubrey with Chucky—naturally—and then hauled Chucky into his lap for one of them together.

The kid's favorite part, of course, was watching the pictures develop. Aubrey didn't think there'd ever been an occasion until today that she'd actually _not_ hated having a camera in her fucking face. 

She wound up letting Andy stay up with them, his VHS of _The Secret of NIMH_ playing until he fell asleep sprawled out on top of her. He hadn't made it very far into the movie, but she hadn't really expected him to. He was such a good kid; Aubrey thought that if all kids were like Andy she wouldn't hate the little monsters so much.

They were leaving in the morning; she'd told Karen she was seeing her dad, just like she'd told Min, so she'd easily agreed to having a friend watch Andy for two days. If the plan didn't go right she might not come back, which was a little unsettling, but not enough to make her back out. What the fuck would she do otherwise? The same bullshit day in and day out until she finally blew her brains out? Fat fucking chance.

Just in case, she'd told Andy she loved him before he fell asleep. The strangest feeling was realizing it was true.

Aubrey glanced down to make sure he was still sleeping before she shifted a little so she wasn't stuck staring at the TV. "Hey, man; if something goes wrong and I fucking die, you gotta make sure the new sitter isn't some huge cunt, okay? And if she is, y'know. Kill her."

"Yeah, I will." Chuck didn't even need to think about it. He wasn't going to let the kid get stuck with an awful sitter for long. Not just for Aubrey, either, he was pretty fond of the little guy, too. Chuck was his friend ‘til the end, after all, he had Andy's back.

He didn't tell Aubrey that nothing would go wrong and that she'd be fine. He wasn't going to lie to her, she was too smart not to know that there was a chance, no matter how well they thought their plans out. Hell, Chuck knew that better than anyone. _He_ hadn't exactly planned on ending up dead, had he? It'd just happened, and he'd had a way to fix it. Aubrey, she might not get lucky enough to have a working backup plan. Chuck didn't even have the amulet he'd used for the spell. If she died before they got to his body, which was the most likely time, they couldn't find her a new one before she was gone.

Their plan was good, though. Better than plans he'd come up with on his own, with someone to point out the holes in it. Chuck had never had an actual partner, one who could keep up with him, one who didn't shy away from what they had to do when it came to killing. Nice change. He wished he'd gotten to give it a try before he was stuck in a doll. He and Aubrey still hadn't talked about ‘after', except for her request to kill a new sitter if she was a bitch. Chuck didn't know what she expected.

He knew what he'd _like_ to do: come back to Chicago, give Aubrey a crash course in killing once he was back to being full sized. See how much she liked his looks face-to-face, instead of a picture on the TV to announce that he was dead. Once he had his body back, then they'd talk about it.

"Good." She didn't mention that he kind of owed her one anyway. They both knew that.

Aubrey was glad for the lack of reassurances. She wasn't a child; she didn't need to hear a bunch of shit she was too old to believe. It only would have served to be insulting. And if that was how things happened to go down...? Well, at least she died doing what she _wanted_ to do.

## 011\. KILLER INSTINCTS

Aubrey had sat down with a map the night before after coming back from Karen's, planning the drive out in one of her school notebooks along with an alternate route, just in case. It was really all they'd had left to do.

That morning, Aubrey called Min and she agreed to bring the car by then. Or, at least, that's what it sounded like. Aubrey could never really understand anything that chick said. It wasn't the accent—just that she talked so fucking _quiet_ all the time, it made it hard to hear her.

When Min showed up at seven Aubrey let her in, not really expecting a long stay. Min was kind of weird. Not weird like _her_ , but just... weird.

"Hey," she said, putting on her small I'm-pretending-I-like-you smile. "Thanks for coming by so early."

Min, who didn't even look old enough to _drive_ , let alone own a car, mumbled something in reply, looking up at Aubrey through her thick bangs.

"Yeah, I got it," Aubrey assured, digging in her back pocket to pull out a rolled over twenty. She handed it over and Min smiled when she saw the small bag of pills tucked inside, then said something that sounded enough like 'thank you' that she assumed that's what it was.

Mutter mutter—Jesus _Christ_ , this girl—'have a safe trip, Aubrey. Feel better.' Something like that. Min handed over the keys with another of her little weirdo smiles and gave a little wave as she saw herself out.

"Was that even English?" Chuck didn't wait long after Aubrey's friend left to come out from where he'd tucked himself away to hide. There wasn't a great explanation for why Aubrey would have a kid's doll sitting out in her apartment, and the fewer people that knew that she had Chuck, the better. As far as he could tell, only Andy knew that Chuck was staying with Aubrey, and he'd been good about keeping his mouth shut to his mom. Karen would have asked, if she'd had any reason to suspect that Aubrey had her kid's doll, so they were in the clear. If it went right, the empty shell of the doll would be back in Andy's arms before Karen even knew any different.

Of course, even if Chuck hadn't been hidden away out of sight, he didn't think he'd have been able to tell what Aubrey's friend was saying. He'd barely been able to tell she was talking at all, if he hadn't been straining to hear in the gaps between when Aubrey was speaking. The important thing was, from Aubrey's half of the conversation, it sounded like they had a car now. That meant all their pieces were in place, and it was down to the one last person that they needed. That made it time to call Mike with a tip, and then the parts of the plan that Chuck couldn't help with were over. Good.

"Yeah, more or less," Aubrey replied. "She's just... Min. I don't know." She was pretty sure people would suspect the mousey little asian for a serial killer before herself, though. Which was pretty funny because, aside from being a little too friendly with Ritalin, Min was actually _pretty fucking normal_ once you could actually hear what she was saying.

Aubrey wanted to get the fuck out of there as soon as possible, but kidnapping an on-duty cop in the middle of the day? It just wasn't smart. She'd gone out at six, just long enough to walk a few blocks and have a bum call the station on a payphone and had him hang up as soon as he was connected with Norris. Once she knew he was working the day shift she didn't really need much else, not when his home number was listed. It was better to catch him off duty, when no one would miss him until his next shift. Which meant all she could do for the time being was load up the car, make sure the safety pull in the trunk wasn't usable, and fucking wait.

*

Once seven o'clock rolled around, Aubrey figured it was clear to head out, since cops usually worked twelves. He'd be tired, most likely, which she was hoping would mean he'd be sloppy.

Getting to Jersey during daylight hours would make the timetable a little sketchy, but they could just cool it at a motel; wait for dark and then get the rest of the job done. It wasn't like she wouldn't need the sleep.

Aubrey hauled her backpack over her shoulder, the last thing she needed for the trip that wasn't already in the car, and dug her keys out. "Alright, man. Let's get this show on the road."

 _Thank god._ Sure, Chuck had known as well as Aubrey that they couldn't kidnap a cop in broad daylight, but after all the pieces were in place the rest of the day had seemed to stretch out longer than the whole wait before had. Freedom was right there in front of him, close enough to grab, and Chuck had delayed his gratification enough. The doll body was starting to feel too much like his own, and when he'd stubbed his toe earlier that day and taken his shoe off to check it, there'd been a bruise. That was a little too real for him; what happened when he got shot? Could he be a fucking doll and still bleed out?

Chuck didn't plan on sticking around long enough to find that part out.

"Yeah, let's go," he said, casual like he hadn't been on the edge of his seat all day, waiting for the moment. He slid to his feet, walked over to Aubrey and waited for her to pick him up. He didn't quite abandon his dignity enough to raise his arms like a fucking toddler, but they both knew what he was doing. Two more days. Two more days, and he wouldn't have to rely on her to cart him around anymore.

It didn't show, but Aubrey felt like if she didn't get going right the fuck _then_ she'd start clawing her skin off. The static-y buzz in her brain was so loud it was setting her teeth on edge, and she focused on breathing as she picked Chucky up, house keys jangling irritatingly as she left and locked up.

Not being much of a car person, she'd been wrong about the Cadillac being a Seville, but a Brougham still had more than enough trunk space. She'd even gotten in earlier while loading them up and disabling the release, just to be sure.

After tossing her bag into the back and setting Chucky in the passenger seat, Aubrey searched for the adjustment bar, knee jammed up against the steering wheel until she could pull the release and shove the seat back. Fucking short ass asian chicks.

*

Aubrey parked near one of the abandoned factories, far enough from the more active areas and the bridge both that someone wandering by would be unlikely. This area of the docks was so disused and forgotten that half the lamps didn't even work anymore, the cost of replacing the bulbs just not worth the trouble. She'd stopped them under one of the few that was still going, nice and easy for Norris to spot.

God, and it had been _so easy_. She'd just flipped the mental switch, and he hadn't even thought to find it weird he was being called at home, he was so wrapped up in the idea that there might be more to the Ray-Caputo case than he'd previously thought.

Aubrey pulled a pair of thin, leather gloves out of her pocket and slipped them on. It was still plenty cold out; it wouldn't even look weird, like she was trying to keep her prints off everything but the car. She hummed quietly to herself as she got the bag with the acepromazine and the syringes from the glove box; she loaded a nice, liberal dose up quickly before making sure there wasn't any air in it and capping it.

If there ever was a time to know—know for _sure_ that this was real and it was a big mistake—this would have been it. But that feeling just wasn't there, and she hadn't expected it to be. All Aubrey felt was an itch and a buzz and a coil in her gut, all conflicting with each other and complimenting each other at the same time.

"He should be here in ten," Aubrey said, glancing at the clock on the dash. "Five if he's in a hurry to play hero."

"Good work." Chuck was kicked back in the passenger's seat, still, not seeing any reason to be in a rush before Aubrey had gotten the meet set up. "My money's on five. He does like being the hero." Loose ends, Mike would probably say. He didn't like loose ends. It was the same fucking thing, wasn't it? At least in this case. Had to get all of his guys, make sure everyone was in cuffs or full of lead.

He watched Aubrey's preparations, then reached for the door handle. "Think I should be out of sight again." There would be no reason for Mike to suspect that anything was up with a doll, except for wondering why, exactly, Aubrey had one to begin with. Any detail out of place, not what he was expecting, and they might put him on his guard. Make him ask too many of the wrong questions. Chuck needed to be somewhere out of sight, but also close enough that he'd be able to get out the second things started going wrong, or to provide a distraction so Aubrey could stab him with the needle. Easy.

There were shadows just outside of the range of the streetlight, but even that might be too far away. Nah, the obvious solution was to stay even closer by. "Under the car?" He said it like a question, sure, but he was pretty sure they both knew the answer to it. He could hold on to the undercarriage, stay completely out of sight so there wouldn't even be any telltale doll body on the ground.

"Under the car," Aubrey agreed, tucking the needle into her coat pocket before stepping out of the car, leaving the door open so he could get out on her side. She wanted him to see her as soon as he got there. Just some skinny young chick. Nothing to be worried about.

She kept expecting something to go wrong. So far it had all been such smooth sailing that it was actually starting to make her paranoid; other shoe to drop and all that shit. She didn't think it was supposed to be so easy—if it were there'd be a whole lot more people on the streets who really shouldn't be.

People like her and Chucky who, she guessed, were the lucky ones for the day.

"Here we go," Aubrey murmured when a pair of headlights passed over the car. Seven minutes, almost on the nose. She wrapped her arms around herself as she watched the cop park his shitty little sedan a little ways from hers, making herself look just a little smaller; a little more unsure.

Mike Norris was a pretty averagely built guy. Tall, not thin, but not bulked up either. That was good; she thought she could handle that. Lugging his high ass around wouldn't be _fun_ , but it could be worse. He looked so _serious_ , even when he gave her a small attempt at a reassuring smile.

"Miss Andrews?" he asked as he approached. Still strapped, she noted. She could see it against the fabric of his jacket. Probably had a backup on him somewhere too; ankle, maybe.

"Yeah," Miss _'Andrews'_ replied, voice as whispy as her frame. He already looked a little sorry for her. Fucking sucker. "I'm sorry about..." Aubrey gestured to their surroundings. "I just—I don't..."

"Hey, I understand," Norris assured, gaze noticably dropping to her still bruised throat. "Whatever makes you feel safe. You said... you saw what happened to Eddie Caputo?"

"Um, yeah. I—yeah," Aubrey said with a small nod. She stayed where she was, half perched on the trunk of the car. "It wasn't an accident," she told him, chin wrinkling a little as she forced that heat into her face; it got easier every time.

"Oh, honey, c'mon," Norris soothed, moving to sit next to her. "It's alright. Just take your time, okay?" Like the good gentleman he was, he politely rubbed her shoulder, not saying a word about it when Aubrey sobbed and buried her face in the side of his neck.

She uncapped the syringe before pulling it out, and she didn't think he even saw it before she stuck it in the other side of his neck. Aubrey tilted her head upwards, lips brushing against his ear as she whispered, "Chucky wanted you to have this."

Norris groped at the side of his neck as he pushed away from her, fumbling to get the needle out. Strong shit; he was already going down. Aubrey didn't think he'd even processed the fact that he was armed yet. She moved away from the car and sank down to hover over the cop, watching him quietly as his eyes tried their hardest to focus on her. He reached for her, and she thought maybe if he hadn't been so doped up he would have been hitting her across the face right then. As it was all he managed to do was loosely grab the front of her coat.

"The... fuck..." he slurred. Ah, there he went. Reaching for his gun. Aubrey cut him off, sticking a hand into his jacket to unholster it.

Aubrey smiled slightly as she leaned closer, tilting Norris' head to the side until the pavement under the car was in his line of sight. It was dark, but she could see him from this angle, and Norris could too, judging by the noise that strangled itself in the back of his throat.

"Oh, honey, c'mon," she murmured, then laughed. "It's alright."

Where he was, under the car, Chuck couldn't see what was going on with Aubrey, or how she was doing, but he could hear enough to be impressed. She'd turned the pathetic victim act on again, one that would have fooled _Chuck_ if he hadn't known better. No matter how many times he saw her do it, Chuck kept finding it strangely attractive in a way he'd never found a woman crying attractive before. Because Chuck was a psycho, but he wasn't an asshole who beat women he loved, was he? If they'd been real tears, they would have been a turnoff, but since he knew she was faking it, it was _different_.

Yeah, so Chuck was twisted. What else was new?

Mike was playing right into it, just like Chuck had known he would. It seemed almost too easy, but that could have been because Chuck was safe under the car. Maybe for Aubrey it wasn't easy at all, but listening to her, Chuck somehow doubted that was the case. 

He didn't hear what she mumbled into Mike's ear, but he heard the cop start to stumble around, knew she must have gotten him already. Chuck let go of his grip on the car's undercarriage and dropped down to the pavement, turning over onto his stomach to begin crawling toward the trunk of the car… except hello, there, Mike, looked like those drugs had been as good as Aubrey's friend had promised.

With a vicious grin, Chuck looked him right in the eye. Yeah, Mike could see he was moving, see something wasn't right. He could see it in his eyes. "Hidey ho, Mike," he said, in his own voice. In Charles Lee Ray's voice, a voice that he knew Mike would recognize anywhere. Hard to argue with the facts right in front of you, wasn't it? Especially when you were high as a kite.

Chuck kept crawling forward, until he could reach out and pat the cop's cheek. "Hope you're ready for a nice long ride." Then, with a glance at Aubrey, he requested, "Tape?" With the man as drugged up as he was, Chuck could probably handle that part… and oh, he wanted to. He wanted to finish what Aubrey had started, and make him even more helpless than he already was.

Aubrey sat up on her heels and reached over to unlock the door, but paused with her keys halfway in the lock when she heard something coming from the other side of the factory. At first she wasn't sure what it was—someone saying something, that was all she could really tell—and then it was close enough to hear, the single word echoing off the building from the side of it that she couldn't see.

"Mike!"

"Oh, what the _fuck_ ," she whispered, shoving her keys back into her pocket. "Who the hell is _that_?" So much for nothing going wrong; she'd fucking jinxed it just by acknowledging it. There was no way she'd have time to get Norris into the trunk before whoever it was calling for him rounded to the back of the building.

"Mikey, ya out here?"

Thinking fast, Aubrey grabbed the empty syringe and chucked it into the canal. The faster this guy shut the fuck up, the less of a chance anyone else would hear him. "Hide," she hissed, getting to her feet. She stowed Mike's gun in her jacket, then started working her breath up a little before she started to run—towards the voice rather than away from it.

"Hello?" she called, panicky. "Please, we need help!"

A man sporting an ugly fucking mustache rounded the corner of the building at a quick jog, looking alarmed. "Detective Santos, CPD," he told her, already digging his badge out to flash it.

Fucking _great_. Probably the guy's partner checking up on him. Maybe Mike wasn't as stupid as she'd thought. "Please—he collapsed, and I don't know what's wrong with him. I don't think he's breathing."

"Jesus..." The cop glanced over her shoulder and kept moving, faster this time now that he'd seen Norris' unconscious body. "Mike!"

Aubrey followed close behind and, once they were near enough to the car, she pulled Mike's gun out and took the safety off, settling the barrel at the back of Santos' head. "Don't fucking move," she sneered, watching him stop dead.

"Fuck..." he muttered.

"No kidding," Aubrey agreed. "Gun. Now."

He blindly handed it over and Aubrey pocketed it, keeping Mike's trained on his skull. "Man, did you ever pick the _wrooong_ night to tail your boyfriend."

"Is he dead?"

"No. Not yet," Aubrey drawled, shrugging slightly even though he couldn't see it.

"I don't know what this is about, but it's—"

"Shut up," Aubrey snapped. "I've got shit to do, and you're pissing me off." She rapped the side of his head sharply with the barrel. "Hands were I can see them and step back—there you go, a little more—great. Thanks. Now down—I said _down_ , detective."

The last thing she needed was to get this fucker's blood all over the car or Norris. They didn't have _time_ to stop and clean.

"Theeere you go. Good boy."

"Please don't," Santos whispered, voice gruff. "You don't want to do this."

"You know what...? You're right," Aubrey sighed. The cop's shoulders relaxed some, but he didn't risk putting his hands down. "You are absolutely right."

She put the safety back on the gun as he started to slowly lower his hands. "You made the right call," he assured her. "You haven't killed anyone yet; you're cooperating—I'll do what I can for you, I promise."

"I think we're having a little bit of miscommunication here, detective," Aubrey said, tone flat; her knife clicked distinctly when she unfolded it, and she reached out to grab him by the hair with her free hand, jerking his head back so she could look down at his face.

"No! No, no, n—" The detective's words garbled wetly as she slit his throat, the knife cutting deep and slicing him open neatly to yield to a smooth red spill of blood. Everything from the ends of Aubrey's hair to the soles of her feet lit up like a goddamn Christmas tree as she watched Detective Santos grasp wildly at his throat while he bled out all over himself.

 _Ohhhh, god that was good._ Something released inside of her, and she was so happy she could almost fucking cry. Nothing in her entire life had ever felt so good as this; so perfectly _right_. And this really was it, wasn't it? This was all she'd ever needed.

He bled out quickly, stopped struggling a couple of minutes before that, and when he'd stopped moving completely, the choking noises giving way to nothing but the amazing silence of death, Aubrey finally let go and let Detective Santos hit the asphalt with an unimpressive _smack_.

Aubrey crouched down next to his body, watching it quietly as she cleaned her knife off on his coat sleeve. "Not too late for that Get Out of Jail Free card, is it, Detective?" she asked blandly.

Chuck cursed when he heard a guy calling out for Mike, putting the facts together almost as soon as the sound hit his ears. Oh, he knew Mike had a partner. He'd seen him, even, once or twice. He'd gotten so focused on Mike, Mike as his killer, Mike as his victim, that he'd forgotten he might have been smart enough to bring backup, or dumb enough to not even notice that his partner had followed him. Of _course_ Mike, golden boy Mike who had killed the Lakeside Strangler, had a partner devoted enough to him to follow his ass to the bad part of town after they'd worked a full shift. Looked like he and Aubrey hadn't thought of everything, after all.

There was only enough time to scuttle back under the car before Aubrey was running to greet the man, story ready. Not enough to climb back up against the undercarriage, tucked a little more securely out of sight. What good would it do them, anyway? Mike's body was still on the ground, and his partner wasn't going to walk away and just let them stuff the guy in the trunk. The time for subtlety was over. Chuck reached for the knife tucked into his overalls, movements slow and careful.

He hadn't expected Aubrey to pull a gun on the cop. Maybe he should have. He knew she had an instinct to kill, the same as him. She was a predator, too. Chuck's hand stayed on the knife, ready in case she needed backup, but he didn't plan on taking this from her. Mike was going to be his, but this one was Aubrey's. With the cop too distracted to notice a talking doll, Chuck crept forward on his stomach, far enough to see everything, pale doll face gleaming in the shadows underneath the car. He waited, and watched, breath stuck in his chest.

The switch to the knife had his gut twisting like there was actually something there to twist, this pathetic body's futile attempts at desire flaring again. God, she was perfect. The perfect specimen of a woman, of a killer. He stared, intent, while she slit the cop's throat. 

It was only once the cop had dropped to the ground that Chuck crawled the rest of the way from beneath the car again, brushing the dirt off the front of his overalls as he stood. He still held the knife, blade tucked away safely, in his other hand, forgotten in the voyeuristic thrill of watching someone else's kill. He stood, silent for a moment, eyes fixed on Aubrey's face. So that was what she looked like when she'd stripped away the masks, when she was completely herself. 

"You're beautiful."

There was surprisingly little going through Aubrey's mind right then. She'd almost forgotten Chucky was even there, she'd been so focused on watching Santos die. When Chucky spoke, though, her darkened gaze flicked up to him sharply.

She'd heard it before, of course. Dylan especially liked to play doting boyfriend, and always made sure to remind Aubrey that she was attractive, as if that earned him some sort of prize. Really, it had just pissed her off. Dylan didn't _know her_. He never had and he never would have; not even that little bit he'd gotten a glimpse of at the end had been anything close to what he hadn't been seeing. It was fucking insulting.

But Chucky saw her. Chucky had probably known her even better than she'd known herself, for a few days there. He saw the disease that sludged through her veins because it was in him too, and he _liked it_ , just like she did.

It was a little fucked up, even for her, to realize she had a hard on for a doll. At least he wouldn't be that way for much longer.

Aubrey leaned over Santos' body, minding the little bit of blood that had seeped out from under him when she did. It was definitely not what she was used to, pressing her lips against fucking plastic, even if it was only for a second. "Get started on him while I'll dump this asshole in the canal."

Chuck had to admit, he hadn't seen the kiss coming - okay, sure, he'd _seen_ it coming, it wasn't like Aubrey had struck like a snake or something, she'd leaned in like a normal person. Expected it, though, definitely not. Not until her lips pressed to his, the warmth and softness of flesh different against plastic skin than he remembered it against his body's lips. It was enough of a surprise that he didn't react, just stared at her a second after she'd pulled back.

"...yeah. Yeah, I can do that." Chuck grabbed for the tape, grinning. Damn, he was in a doll body and he could _still_ get the girl.

There wasn't any kind of art to taping a man up. There could be, he guessed, if you really wanted to take the time to get technical with it, but all Chuck bothered with was wrapping the duct tape around his wrists enough times that he wouldn't be able to get out without a second pair of hands. He started a rip in the tape with teeth that were surprisingly sharp for being made of plastic, and repeated the process with Mike's ankles, too. Guy was still out like a light, and if they timed the sedatives right, he wouldn't have a chance to make a peep. Just in case, Chuck still taped over his mouth, too, sealing it around the back of his head. Didn't matter if it would rip hair out coming off. It didn't need to come off. As long as it didn't block his nose and keep him from breathing (and it didn't, Chuck wasn't an amateur), who cared how comfortable it was?

Santos was a heavy fuck, but it wasn't far to drag him to the railing. The real effort was in hauling his body up so she could drop him over the edge, watching his head hit a post on the way down before he hit the water. Aubrey dropped his gun in after him. It hadn't been fired and her prints weren't on it, so she wanted nothing to do with it.

Maybe if they got lucky it would seem like Norris had some skeletons in the closet and had killed his partner before disappearing.

Aubrey checked her clothes for blood as she walked back to the car, walking around the large smear on the pavement on her way back around to the trunk. Time to haul another fucking cop around.

She checked Norris' breathing and pulse after opening the trunk, just to make sure she hadn't misjudged anything, but the fucker was fine; just out like a light. She grunted harshly as she started lifting him up, annoyed that he was heavier than the other had been.

"Jesus Christ, dude," she huffed, as if it had more to do with his size than her own. It got a little easier once she had him up, but she had to take care not to accidentally drop him into the trunk. They didn't need to get to Jersey and find him dead from fucking brain damage.

After Norris was in, she took anything out he could potentially get his hands on and transferred them to the back seat, then slammed the trunk shut.

And, finally, that was it. They had everything they needed.

"Let's get the fuck out of here."

All Chuck could do was watch while Aubrey figured out how to lever Mike into the trunk; it wasn't like his tiny arms could do much, and he wasn't tall enough to get to the trunk without climbing, himself. He gathered up the tape, checked the area to make sure that they weren't leaving anything behind that would give away that they (or anybody, if it wasn't for the telltale dead body) had been involved. It would have been rude to leave Aubrey to do _everything_ , after all, especially when she was doing him a pretty big favor. And she'd kissed him, couldn't forget that part. Just because he'd gotten to first base, it didn't mean he was safe yet. This wasn't the time to get lazy.

Once that was done, though, he lingered awkwardly, twitching forward a few times, almost trying to give her a hand even though he knew it would be pointless. She got it, though, and he opened the back door for her to pile in whatever she thought was too dangerous to leave in the trunk where Mike might reach it, if he woke up. Nothing if not thorough, that was Aubrey.

"Ready when you are." Chuck moved around to the passenger side. Hey, it might have been less obvious for him to ride in the back seat, but if anyone noticed while they were on the road, it wasn't like they were going to stop them just to ask questions. Besides, this way? Chuck could take care of changing the tapes, since it wasn't like he could do his fair share of time behind the wheel.

He settled in, and looked at the seatbelt skeptically before shrugging and buckling in. Hey, didn't hurt, and Aubrey having to stop to pick him up because he'd gone through the windshield if she had to brake hard wouldn't be a great addition to the story. 

Just them, the road, and a pile of tapes. Oh, and the cop tied up in the trunk. Still not the worst road trip Chuck had been on.

## 012\. ON A LONG, DARK ROAD

Aubrey wasn't much of a rambler. Oh, she could talk as much as any other person, but for the time being she was content to drive without running her mouth off fucking constantly, more than happy to watch Santos die in her head on loop. The way he'd stared at her the entire time, as if maybe she could stop him from dying even after she'd cut him open, if only he could just convince her. It had been fucking beautiful.

She didn't think it would keep her urges sated for long, but now that she'd done it... she honestly couldn't care less about trying to keep herself in _check_.

Three hours into the drive, Aubrey pulled over just long enough to give Norris another dose. He'd been lucid enough to look her in the eye when she'd opened the trunk, but nowhere near coherent enough to try and fight his way out.

Three hours after that she had to pull over again, eyes dry and stinging. She'd been up for... god, she didn't know. Almost twenty hours at that point. She was just glad Min's beast of a fucking Caddy had cruise control. Aubrey dug around in her bag for what she needed, finally picking out the small baggy from the mess, the two pills inside already ground up into powder. God, she really _hated_ this shit, but it was better than running them off the road.

She snorted just enough of the crap off the end of a pen cap to keep her going, wiping at her nose as that familiar crawling sensation slithered its way under her skin and into her scalp, making her anxious and horny and irritated all in one go. She swallowed around the unpleasant taste clinging to the back of her throat as she took the car out of park, gearing up for another long, black stretch of highway.

"God," Aubrey muttered to herself, reaching over to turn the stereo off. "Sorry. Gotta level out a little before I can have that going."

"It's fine." Like Chuck was going to complain? He wasn't the one driving, and as boring as it might be to sit through a car ride with no music, he'd rather be bored than have Aubrey get distracted by the music while she was adjusting to the drugs in her system. He hadn't asked what it was, exactly. He hadn't cared. She knew what she could handle, and if she didn't they were screwed anyway. If what she needed to handle it was silence, he wasn't going to be the dick that whined about it.

Besides, they'd already gone through most of the tapes he'd packed up for the drive. It was about time for a little peace and quiet, before they blew through the rest and he was sick of all of it before they got there. He didn't know if Aubrey could listen to the same things on repeat and not get sick of it, but he couldn't. He needed some variety. Too bad that his body probably wouldn't have any cash on it, or he'd take her shopping for some new options once they got him back into it.

Was it a little too soon to be counting on it? Probably. Chuck was going to get his body back, though, one way or another, or he was going to die trying. If he _could_ die. He didn't want to find out the answer to that, either. He just wanted his normal, human body back.

Maybe he couldn't buy her anything with money he didn't have, but Chuck did know where to start paying back how much he owed her. "I'll take the drive on the way back." They could take their time with it, then, couldn't they? Break it up over a couple of days, once they no longer had a cop tied up in the trunk. Just a nice, relaxing road trip. Maybe even pick up a couple of hitchhikers to kill on the way, if they felt like celebrating. Chuck thought he was going to feel like celebrating.

"Thank fuck," Aubrey sighed. "I'm not gonna want to drive for a fucking month after this." Which worked out pretty well, since she didn't even have a car.

She stopped again after another hour to shoot Norris up again. He'd tried to say something, but the tape held firm, and she'd just closed the trunk in his face without a word before getting back in.

By the time her headlights passed over a sign that said HACKENSACK 108, Aubrey was mostly calm again, zeroed in on the road in front of them as she tried to be relieved that they were in the home stretch rather than anxious about it.

A flash of red and blue washed over the car.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, _fuck_. She knew it. She fucking knew it. Even with Santos, it was all too fucking _easy_. Aubrey tensed, turning her blinker on as she slowed down, trying to find a good spot to pull over.

One more cop when one was already dead and another was in the trunk didn't bother her a bit, but leaving a trail of high profile bodies on the way to Jersey wasn't going to do them any goddamn favors, and she'd really rather not.

"Backseat," she murmured, rolling her window down.

Aubrey didn't need to tell Chuck twice. He unbuckled himself and clambered into the back, letting himself fall onto the floorboard like a discarded toy. Like maybe a kid had dropped him there, and Aubrey might not have noticed him while she was packing the car up. Whoever this cop was, he didn't know them. He didn't know what kind of life Aubrey had. He'd seen her lie, and coming up with a reason why there was a doll in her back seat was probably one of the easier ones she'd have to pull off.

Not that Chuck thought another dead cop would be a waste of time, no more than Aubrey did, but that would be another body to dispose of when they really didn't have the time or place for it, another abandoned cop car. If anybody linked the kill in Chicago to a kill this close to Hackensack, figured out that it was the same killer… there were plenty of people who might spot them, there. Link them to Chicago. What were the chances that two people from Chicago were going to fucking Hackensack at the same time, the time that two cops were killed by the same style of knife?

Cops loved patterns, and that pattern was too good to pass up.

Once he had tumbled himself into the floorboard, Chuck held still, barely breathing. It made him twitchy, this cop taking an interest in them. Had Aubrey been speeding? Not that he'd noticed, not that he was a good judge. If they got made because Aubrey's friend had expired tags, or a rear light out… friend of Aubrey's or not, Chuck was going to gut the bitch for handing the car over to them if her lack of routine maintenance got Aubrey arrested.

The cop, some older member of highway patrol, looked almost bored. He probably was. It was five in the fucking morning and no one was on the road. What else was there to do but pull someone over for something small?

"Morning, miss," he rumbled, glancing Aubrey over. "Long drive?"

"Oh, not too bad. About five hours," Aubrey lied. No sense telling him where she was coming from; not when they were this close to Jersey. She mentally tried to figure out what was wrong before he could tell her. She'd checked all the lights while they were still at the apartment, the tags had looked fine... Was she speeding? That one, she honestly didn't know. She was still just this side of hopped up, but she didn't think she had been.

"Going a little fast, sweetheart," the cop told her, brow raised, as if he were some sort of disapproving daddy figure.

"I was doing seventy, wasn't I?"

"In a sixty-five," he told her. Seriously? Five fucking miles over? _Everyone_ did that.

"Oh. I must not have seen it change."

"It's fine; just slow down, alright, honey?"

Aubrey forced a smile. If he called her one more fucking pet name... "Sure thing, officer. I'm sorry. I really didn't see it."

"Just keep a better eye out for the rest of your drive. Where you headed?"

"Oh, uh, New York. Seeing family." God, would this guy just _fucking leave_? With their luck, as good as it had been, this would be the moment Norris fucking started banging around in the trunk or some shit.

But he didn't. The cop wrapped his bullshit up after he was done eyefucking her, then walked his fat ass back to his car; no registration, no lookup, no 'Miss, please step out of the car.' Aubrey didn't relax until she couldn't see his rear lights anymore, and even then she was still on edge.

"What an asshole." By the time the patronizing bastard was done talking, Chuck had been wishing they _had_ been forced to kill him. He climbed back over into the front seat once he'd heard the cop's car drive away, boosting himself over the console between the two so that he could wiggle his way over to the passenger seat again. He didn't bother buckling in, not until Aubrey actually started driving again. "Who gives a rat's ass about five over?" No one that Chuck had ever met, that was for sure.

At least they hadn't gotten a ticket. That would have been the shit icing on the shit cake, because there was documentation that they weren't where Aubrey had said they would be. The second they'd let him enter the ticket, there was a paper trail.

It hadn't come to that, though, so Chuck reached over and pressed his palm against her arm. "Hey. You good?" Good to go on, he meant. She was obviously still on edge, and hey, she had the right to be. That had been a close call. Not the last they were going to have, probably, but the first was always the worst. 

Damn, it would have been nice to sink his knife into the fucker's gut, though. Or to see Aubrey do it, show him what a ‘sweetheart' she was, wouldn't it?

"Yeah," Aubrey ground out. "Yeah, I'm good." Her heart was fucking jackhammering, which was likely due to the uppers still in her system more than some cunt cop giving them a scare, but regardless of the cause it wasn't ideal.

"Won't be so sweet when I run your fat fucking ass off the road," she muttered, more to herself than anything, as she got them back on track. A hundred miles. They just needed to make it a hundred miles.

And then hope nothing else went wrong between then and the next evening.

By the time they hit Hackensack the sun was up and Aubrey felt like she was dying. Her eyes were burning, her mouth was dry, and the shit she'd snorted had worn off a good thirty minutes ago, leaving her sore from unintentionally clenching up for most of the second half of the drive.

She pulled into the first motel that looked like enough of a shithole to not really care about who checked in, passing up the chains in favor of a single level row of rooms with a sign that hadn't been updated since the '70s. There were only a few cars in the lot and the vacancy sign was on; that was good enough for her.

"Alright, I'm gonna get a room and then come back. I'll take care of him after we're parked away from the office." Walking around with a doll on her arm would only make her more memorable, which was exactly the opposite of what they wanted.

The man at the small courtesy desk, if you could call it that, had to be at least seventy and looked half blind. Maybe it was their fucked up luck making up for getting pulled over; maybe it was just another courtesy before the next shoe dropped. Who knew. Either way, he barely even looked at her ID when she handed it over while checking in. Somehow she doubted he'd be able to tell it was a subpar fake from some low level, out-of-dorm 'operation' that she'd paid all of fifteen bucks for.

Waiting in the car, Chuck decided, just didn't get any less annoying. It was worse than waiting at Aubrey's apartment, where he could at least find something to entertain himself with. In the car, he was stuck sitting still, in case someone was to walk by and decide to look into the car. People were too nosy for their own good, sometimes, and Chuck figured he was about the right size for someone, on a casual glance, to mistake for a toddler if they saw him moving around in the distance. They thought someone had closed a toddler in the car, and they'd probably come running to save him.

Every second he sat there, Chuck got more and more paranoid about Mike, closed up in the trunk. He was half convinced, a time or two, that he heard something from behind the rear seats, felt the car dip like the cop was rolling around in the trunk. When he froze and listened closer, nothing came of it, but the thought that he _might_ kept Chuck tense, planning for what he'd do if he was unlucky enough that Mike woke up and started pitching a fit while Chuck was alone in the car. The answer was jack shit; it wasn't like he could knock the guy out again without creating even more of a spectacle, was it?

What was _taking_ so long getting their room? Sure, it probably wasn't near as long as it seemed, but the wait for Aubrey to get back seemed to stretch on forever. Had her ID gotten caught? Were there no rooms and they'd have to drive around looking for one? 

He'd almost driven himself through the roof by the time she stepped back outside, and then it was torture waiting for her to get back to the car before he could find out if they were good to go.

Aubrey slid into the driver's seat quickly, closing the door behind her. She didn't bother buckling in since she was only driving further down the row, tossing the key—which was attached to a bright orange plastic tag--into the seat between them.

"Dude was like a hundred," she muttered as she backed out. "We're in twelve; check out's at noon tomorrow."

As soon as she'd parked on the other side of the lot, Aubrey leaned over the seats to grab the bag she needed, not moving to get out again until after she'd loaded up another syringe. She reached over to pick Chucky up. They were the second to last room down the line, on the end of the building that was butted up against a small cluster of young trees. At least it would be quiet; if she couldn't sleep she'd probably burn the entire building down just for the satisfaction of watching the other lodgers burn.

"Just gonna make sure he stays out," she muttered, holding him close as she got out. There was a man standing outside his door smoking, but he didn't pay her any attention.

Chuck kept his eye on the guy standing outside the room. This was the kind of place where most people didn't want to look too close as what was in their neighbor's trunk, or listen too close to what was going on next door. They could always get a Good Samaritan, though. It was a risk that you ran, when you were trying to pull off a good kill, wasn't it? If this guy made a fuss, Chuck was ready to take him out, too. People would care about cops dying, but some random guy in a motel? No one would figure it out until he didn't check out on time, if they dragged him into his room. As long as they got out before, there was no reason to link them to it. It wasn't a kill he looked forward to, though. Collateral damage happened, but it was the sign of a sloppy plan.

"How many doses do we have left?" he whispered to Aubrey, quiet as he could and still have her hear him. No one else was close enough to see his lips move, or hear the quiet murmur. The smoking guy didn't even twitch, too focused on his cigarette.

The check out time was perfect. Aubrey could sleep, and then they'd have time to go, take care of getting his body back, and (if everything went right) get another few hours of rest before they needed to check out and get back on the road. As long as this fucker with the cigarette didn't look, it was all really tidy.

He didn't look, didn't even seem to notice the grown woman carrying a doll. Good. As long as he kept that up once the trunk was open.

"Counting this one? Three. We're gonna be cutting it close, but what's a little brain damage between friends?" Aubrey joked dryly. Like she fucking cared if she had to knock Norris out with the shovel. When she opened the trunk, he stared right at her, eyes wide. The last dose had been a little skimped; not enough to give him any real sort of power, but enough that he was the most lucid he'd been since she'd met him.

His eyes darted to Chucky and he started trying to talk—or, rather, shout—through his gag. Aubrey set him down on the edge of the trunk quickly, coughing to cover the noise as she slapped a firm hand over his mouth. He fought against his restraints, but it was weak. Nothing that kept her from driving the needle into the side of his abused neck.

"Shhh," she murmured, eyes hard as they bored into Norris'. "We're almost done. Yeah, there you go, motherfucker. Just go back to sleep."

God. She was pretty sure he'd pissed himself. Not that she was surprised, but she'd have to throw the trunk mat into the wash before handing the car back over to Min.

As much as Chuck wanted to jump in and start bashing Mike's head, he made himself hold still, balanced on the edge of the trunk where Aubrey had left him. His eyes, though, stayed fixed on Mike's face as he fought as well as he could with the drugs still running through his system. Close as he was, he could smell the piss and stale sweat, and his small, snubbed plastic nose wrinkled in disgust. How the fucking mighty had fallen, right?

He watched as Mike's eyes rolled back into his head before his eyelids shut again, lapsing back into sleep. Would the timing on the doses work out? Chuck couldn't quite figure it in his head, especially since the dose before had been smaller. It had faded from his system a little more than it had with all the doses before it, wasn't as built up, this time. If Aubrey was late on the next dose… if they ran out of doses…

"Leave me in here," Chuck suggested. "In the trunk with him." It would leave him smelling godawful, but if Mike started coming around, someone needed to be there to give him a love tap, or pinch his nose shut until he passed out again. Chuck wasn't strong enough for much, but he thought he could manage that.

Chuck turned his head to look up at her. "I can take care of keeping him out while you sleep. Leave me a dose, I can handle sticking him if he starts to wake up." And if it happened too soon, if he needed to find another way to make him sleep… Chuck would do that, too. He just needed Aubrey at her best.

"...are you sure? It reeks like a fucking nursing home in there." Aubrey wasn't sold on the idea. What if something happened? Chucky was dangerous, but he wasn't _big_ , and she still wasn't totally sure how easy (or hard) he would be to take out. She was already dead on her feet; there was no way she'd be able to come back and check on them—if she could Chucky wouldn't be suggesting it in the first place.

She glanced around the parking lot briefly to make sure no one was around, but it was still just the guy with a cigarette, who was already putting it out and digging his keys from his pocket.

Little as Chuck actually wanted to, it was the best choice and they both knew it. "I'm sure. It's gonna be for, what, twelve hours?" Twelve hours or so before it was dark enough to get out to the cemetery undetected. And that was at the most. "I can handle anything for twelve hours." Even a trunk that reeked of piss. If he stopped to think about it, Chuck had probably been in worse places in his life.

"Go, get some sleep." Chuck looked back to the trunk, trying not to make too godawful a face. "Mike and I are gonna be just fine." If Chuck was lucky, the drugs would hit him hard enough that it wouldn't be a fight to keep him under. If not… he'd manage.

Aubrey sighed quietly through her nose, reaching to check and make sure Chuck still had his knife on him before giving a slight nod. "Alright, man; get in. I'll load another up for you."

If there was any better way...

But there wasn't, so Aubrey got them set up in the trunk before heading in. The room was small, a single bed that smelled like old cigarettes and fabric softener, but it wasn't too bad. Worn down, out of date, but nothing was falling off the walls and she didn't see any weird stains on anything but the carpet by the dresser. Once she'd blocked out as much light as she could she set the alarm clock that was bolted to the nightstand (which, in turn, was bolted to the floor), went to the small, too-white bathroom to take the world's longest piss, then stripped her jacket and jeans off. She was pretty sure she was out before she even hit the pillow.

## 013\. ADE DUE DAMBALLA

It was the longest twelve hours of Chuck's life, trapped in that trunk with Mike's comatose body, waiting for him to wake up. He stirred restlessly several times, but he only actually woke once. Time had faded away until the hours felt like years, so Chuck jabbed the needle into his neck and hoped for the best. It had worked, though, and he'd just been starting to stir again when Aubrey opened the trunk to let him out and give Mike the last dose of sedative that they had. It would have to be good enough.

Chuck hadn't known where the cemetery was, but it had been simple enough for Aubrey to get directions to it while he sat, a useless hunk of plastic in the back seat. As far as cemeteries went, he guessed it was nice. What was really that nice about dead people, though? Cremation, that was the way to go, unless you needed your body back to return to. Chuck was damn glad that no one had decided to save the space and cremate his body, instead. Of course, then he'd have just picked a body up off the street…

His grave was one of the newest, easy enough to find by the mound of dirt that still hadn't packed down flat. There weren't any flowers on it, nobody wanting to take the time to remember a man who'd done what he had done. Chuck traced his fingers over the engraving on the stone, his name, birth date, death date. "This is it." He wasn't going to be much help with the digging. He stepped out of the way, waited for Aubrey to get at it.

This was it. His body, waiting under six feet of dirt, in a wooden box. 

"Fucking freaky, huh?" Aubrey assumed, anyway. Staring at your own grave; standing a few feet above your rotting corpse. A few feet. She doubted she'd be thinking of it in those terms by the end of the night—and she had no doubts it would take until then. She was young and she could bounce back with the best of them, but Aubrey had always been a skinny girl. There wasn't a whole lot of muscle mass hiding under her ratty band t-shirts.

She'd have to fix that, she thought. It'd only help in the long run. Sure, she'd never be _strapped_ , but a little more athletic? She could swing that. _What better way to start than digging a six foot deep hole?_

Aubrey pulled the thick work gloves on, glancing at Norris' unconscious body as she hefted the shovel. Dragging his ass around had been, what, a warmup? Yeah. Yeah, sure. Weight training for serial killers; cue rimshot.

The spade went in easily with the topsoil still so loose, but she was pretty sure it was all gonna be downhill from there. Twenty of the longest minutes of her life into it and Aubrey already knew she'd called it. It was cold as shit out and she was already fucking hot, and the amount of dirt she'd pulled was nothing but disappointing, even though she'd been going steady the entire time.

An hour and a half in and Aubrey had long since abandoned her jacket. It was enough to make her wish they could have kept Norris lucid, if only to make him fucking pitch in. And she was realizing that the deeper this thing got the harder it would be. She was about a foot in, from what she could tell, and her arms were already sore.

Yeah. _Definitely_ doing more than sitting on her ass with a six-year-old all day after this.

Yeah, it was pretty fucking freaky. Chuck couldn't help but wonder how bad his body was doing, down there, how badly it was starting to rot. You'd think, with his kill count, he'd know more about decomposition, how long it took a body to reach a certain point. It wasn't like Chuck found them interesting after they were dead, though. He wasn't one of those guys that wanted to keep his kills around, he disposed of them like a normal psychopath.

Chuck paced while Aubrey worked, stopping to kick Mike once in awhile. It pissed him off, being so close and having to wait. Part of him wanted to snap at Aubrey to dig faster, but the part of him hoping that she wouldn't be too put off by seeing his corpse before he restored it to kiss him again told that part to keep his damn mouth shut, because pissing her off wasn't going to do them any favors. The impatience, though, that he didn't hide very well at all. If only there was a way to make it easier, make it go faster. They hadn't planned on the time it would take, had they? Neither of them had known.

As time crept by, he got twitchier and twitchier. If she'd been digging this long, and only gotten this far, how the hell were they going to finish everything they needed to have done and have Mike buried back in Chuck's grave before dawn? He didn't even know if Aubrey's arms were going to hold out long enough to get them there, if it took this long.

Could have kidnapped some guys off the street in town. Threatened them, if they didn't dig. People would do almost anything if they thought it could save their lives, and normal guys, they wouldn't try to be a hero like a cop would. Too late. Should have thought of it sooner, they were already there. "How deep now?"

"Man, I don't know; two feet?" That looked about right, anyway. She was going as fast as she could and it still felt like slogging through fucking water. Just like Chucky, she was wondering if they'd have time to bury Norris, but she couldn't think about that while she was still digging.

"Is it—" Aubrey grunted as she dumped another pile of dirt next to the ground. "A flat six feet, or is it six feet _plus_ the casket height?" A casket was, what, like two feet high? Three? If that was the case, and they only had three or four feet to go, then maybe they weren't as fucked as she thought.

Chuck hadn't been to many funerals. He had to think about it, standing still at last, for a minute, at least. "I think they dig it down six feet and then put the casket in." Seemed right, anyway. They didn't say to dig the hole eight or nine fucking feet deep, did they? You always heard six feet. "About four feet down to the top. Three, if they used one of those vaults." Less digging, if they had, but that meant they'd have to figure out how to crack that open. They hadn't brought the tools for that.

"About halfway," he said. If they ran into a big slab before then, they'd deal with it. Somehow.

"Vaults," Aubrey groaned. She'd forgotten about those. The last funeral she'd been to had been almost ten years ago, when her grandma passed away. She'd take the extra foot over a fucking burial vault any day. She had no clue how those were even _opened_. A casket, at least, could probably be broken open through the lid if need be.

Another foot in and Aubrey had to sit down on the edge of the hole she'd started, trying not to puke. She only gave herself long enough for the nausea to pass. If she sat for too long she'd start to feel the hell her arms were undoubtedly going through, and once _that_ happened it was all fucking over.

She hauled herself back into the grave to start digging again. The edges of it were at her hips now, thank fucking god, and she told herself it was just one more foot. 'One more foot' seemed like a fucking insult when she was sweaty, tired, and covered in fucking cemetery dirt.

It was close, it had to be close, and Chuck was leaning over the other side of the hole that Aubrey was digging, staring down into it eagerly. If there was a vault, she should have been hitting it any time. If there wasn't… that one last foot might take longer, if she was getting tired, but she could rest once the grave was open. She could rest, and Chuck could do the ritual on his own, and hope that his arms weren't useless after time spent in the grave.

Aubrey was filthy, and Chuck's knees were grinding the dirt into the fabric of his overalls where he knelt, watching, too fixated on waiting for a hint of _something_ to appear to even care that Mike was starting to stir, the last of the drugs beginning to wear off. They hadn't worn off enough for him to go anywhere, and other than that? Chuck didn't give a fuck. They were there. It was going to be the work of a minute to do the ritual. Last time, he'd been dying, and he'd still managed to get it out before Mike could do a damn thing about it.

When he heard the thunk of shovel hitting something that wasn't dirt, Chuck thought he must have been imagining it. Then it came again, and that time, he jolted to his feet. "That's it." That was it, his grave. His body inside. Sure, there was a lot of dirt to clean off it still before they could get in, but maybe the fact that she was almost done would give Aubrey the same jolt of energy it was giving him.

"Oh fuck," Aubrey sighed with relief, lifting the shovel out of the hole to set it aside. Her arms were so far past pain that she could barely feel them; warm numbness masking what would undoubtedly be a tight burn come morning. For then, though, not being able to feel it was the only reason she could keep going, and she started quickly brushing dirt out of the way to reveal the cheap, wooden box he was buried in.

Even with victory so close and the job almost done—or maybe especially because of those things—in the back of Aubrey mind it was a constant, quiet murmur of, _Don't you dare bury me in this fucking hole with that cop. Don't you fucking dare..._

Christ, did she even need the crank? This thing looked like it'd just bust open with a few hits from the shovel. She hadn't done all this digging just to damage the body, though, so she dug the tool out of her jacket and dug some earth away from the bottom corner of the box so she could wedge it in. 

It might have been smarter if Chuck had decided to bury Aubrey, but that choice? He'd stopped considering it what felt like a long time before. Who knew if he'd ever find a girl like her again? What an awful waste it would be, to leave her sharing a casket with Mike Norris when she could be sharing something way more interesting with Chuck. He was an asshole, but he wasn't going to leave her behind.

He watched, fists clenched, while she cleared away the rest of the dirt, then snorted at the sight of the plain wooden box in the ground. Nothing ornamental, no vault to protect it. "They spared no fucking expense, didn't they?" Not that he'd expected some grand funeral, or for anyone to shell out for something truly fancy, but come on, he'd been human. Still was, even if he was stuck in a doll. They could have done _something_ other than shove him in a box that actually looked _smaller_ than any caskets he remembered and dump him in the ground. Fuckers.

Couldn't distract him from the worry that hit him, once she started opening that box. Shit, what if they'd ripped him apart? What if he was missing organs, or too fucked up for even the spell and the blood sacrifice to fix? They wouldn't know until they'd opened the damn box, would they? He held his breath as the wood creaked, and something cracked, and the lid started to raise.

Aubrey reached for the top half of the lid, then paused to lift the neck of her shirt up over her nose and mouth, holding it there. Just in case. The lid groaned quietly as she hauled it open. She didn't know what she'd been expecting—she wasn't a fucking mortician—but the corpse looked better than she'd thought it would; a little bloated and badly discolored, but not split apart or openly decaying.

The _smell_ , though... That was what got her. The thin cotton of her t-shirt did little to block out the scent of rotting meat and what had to be formaldehyde, and Aubrey couldn't hold back a dry heave, stomach pulling in on itself as she swallowed against the sensation.

God, she had to get out of that fucking hole before she puked all over herself.

" _Fuck_ ," she grunted as she started to drag herself back out, trying not to breathe through her nose. Once she was back above ground the air was cleaner. A quick glance at Norris told her he was groggily trying to inch his way away from them, but she wasn't worried too about it. How fucking far was he going to get, half stoned and bound with duct tape?

"You want help down?" Aubrey asked, leaning back to hook her fingers through the tape that held the cop's ankles together. "Knock it off," she growled. "We're not fucking done with you yet."

"I got it." The stench was really horrible, but Chuck gritted his teeth and edged himself into the hole, anyway. His fingers bit into the dirt around the pit that Aubrey had dug for a few seconds before they started to slip, and he let go and dropped before he fell. He landed on top of his own body with a grunt, then checked it over to make sure he hadn't done any kind of damage to the bloated skin. "Charles, my friend, you've looked better." Yeah, so he was talking to himself. It made it a little less creepy, disconnecting _him_ from this rotting, bloated thing that was already starting to lose its resemblance to the face he'd seen in the mirror every day. 

Chuck reached for the body's neck, finding the chain still hooked around it. Maybe if the amulet had looked like something actually valuable, they would have taken it off of him. Its value was entirely in its use, though, so whoever had buried him had left it alone. Thank fuck; Chuck might have been able to do without it, but the amulet was going to make the spell a lot easier.

It was hard to unhook it with small plastic fingers, but Chuck managed to fumble around until he got it off of his body. He fastened it around the neck of the doll body, stroking the amulet once before he looked back up at Aubrey. "It's here. Everything I need is here." 

That meant it was time. 

He checked inside his overalls, where he'd tucked the knife that Aubrey had bought for him. That was in place, too. It was time for the sacrifice. "Kick our buddy Mike down here for me, wouldja?" It would be the last of Aubrey's heavy lifting, that night, unless shit got really fucked up.

"No problem." Her arms and chest begged to fucking differ, but Aubrey stood up, grabbing hold of Norris by the back of one knee and under his arm. He started thrashing weakly, muffled yells getting caught against the tape over his mouth. Once she'd dragged him to the edge of the grave she stopped, digging her knee into his back to hold him still as she leaned over him to look at Chucky.

"Just a head's up: If you try to kill me after this? I'm taking you down—and then I'm skull fucking you with the handle of that shovel over there." Aubrey blew him a small kiss as she sat back, getting a grip on the cop again. He stared at her, eyes wide as he shook his head frantically. Aubrey just smiled.

"By the way... I slit your partner's throat back in Chicago," she told him, laughing as he gave a loud, pained moan. She sat back and shoved him into the grave with her feet, muttering a low, "Goodbye, detective."

Sure, it had been a threat, but her threat to skull fuck him with the shovel made Chuck grin, no matter how serious the moment was. He blew a kiss right back at her, because even if he'd _had_ the slightest lingering desire to kill her, that would have crushed it, right there. What a woman.

He laughed, loud and clear, as Aubrey delivered the _real_ killing blow before shoving Mike into the grave with him. It almost distracted him too much to move out of the way as the detective fell, fighting uselessly against his bound wrists and ankles to try to catch himself before he hit the casket. The noise he made when he realized he was laying almost on top of a dead body was priceless, and the way he gagged, stomach heaving but the duct tape getting rid of any chance he had to spit out whatever bile is body could bring up. "You did this to me, Mikey. See what happens when little boys play with guns?" Or maybe he wasn't Mike's first kill. Chuck guessed that Mike's kill count could have been as high as his own, it was just legal. Sanctioned, even. Mike wasn't the murderer. He probably didn't lose any more sleep over it at night than Chuck ever had, and they called _him_ a psychopath.

"Now, you get to help me fix it." Chuck pulled out the knife, pressed the tip over Mike's heart. He could only go so far, but oh, he tried. It was too crowded in Chuck's grave for two bodies and a doll; good thing there'd only be one body left inside it, soon.

The other hand rested on the chest of Chuck's dead body. He held the knife steady as he could, but he didn't stab, not yet. The amulet felt heavy against his chest, and he looked to the sky. "Ade due Damballa, give me the power I beg of you!"

Dark clouds rolled above them, cutting off the moon and stars. It was dark, too dark to see, until the first strike of lightning cracked, illuminating Chuck's face, making the whites of Mike's wide, frantic eyes seem even brighter. 

"De la fòs du bois chaloitte, par le sang ti mouton agneau…" The wind howled, and Chuck had to raise his voice to hear himself, even though he knew all the words by heart. He wanted to laugh, to share his glee in the power that he was commanding with the universe, but he couldn't. Besides, the best part was just about to start.

The electricity in the air and the smell of the looming storm swept the smell of death away as the strands of hair that had slipped out of Aubrey's bun clung to her cheek and neck. She stayed close to the edge of the grave, hands gripping the edge of the hole as she watched. After everything she'd pulled off to make this happen there was _no way_ she was missing it.

Norris was finally what you could really call lucid, and she thought maybe he finally _really_ saw what was going on without his brain so fogged up with drugs. But it was too late, wasn't it? She'd done her job and done it fucking well.

Thunder boomed above them, seeming to shake the earth, but Aubrey didn't look away.

The knife punched into Mike's chest, sliding easily between two of his ribs. It was barely long enough to reach his heart, but ‘barely' still made it, didn't it? Blood sprayed as he pulled it out again, sprayed and then gushed, weakly, with each pulse of a heart struggling to keep itself going. It splashed on Chuck, and on the body in the casket, soaking its clothes, bathing its face as Mike struggled again, like it was going to do any good. He was already dead, he just didn't realize it yet.

The lightning was hitting the ground all around them, one of the bolts hitting a small, sad little tree with a bench beneath it. The branches caught ablaze, fanned by the wind that was picking up dirt from the pile that Aubrey had made with her digging. "Renmèt kò qui était le mien! De la fòs du bois chaloitte." The storm raged around them, and when Chuck looked up he could see Aubrey, watching, see her waiting to see where the show was going. Chuck wasn't going to disappoint.

"Endelieu pour de boisette Damballa! Endelieu pour de boisette Damballa!" It might have been Chuck's imagination, but he thought he could see the face of the corpse, beneath the blood, smoothing out, the bloat disappearing. In the eerie light of the electricity crackling around them, and under the layer of red, he couldn't tell if the color was returning to normal. The bullet wound was hidden under the clothes they'd buried him in; Chuck wouldn't know if that was fixing itself until he was back in the body.

The lightning struck closer, thunder booming in response to Chuck, drowning him out. He yelled, as loud as whatever was serving as lungs in the tiny doll body could manage, "Endelieu pour de boisette Damballa!"

This was it. This was the end, this was when he found out of John had fucked him over this time. It was too late to turn back now. "Endelieu pour de boisette Damballa! _RETURN!_ " The next crack of lightning was right beside the grave, and the thunder unleashed all its fury.

Then it went silent. Still. The dark clouds overhead began to roll back, the moon and stars setting up their silent vigil again. If it hadn't been for the still burning tree, there'd have been no sign that the skies had ever answered to Chuck's call.

Aubrey tensed against the need to shiver as the wind picked up, her jacket still where she'd left it on the back of Chucky's headstone. Lightning struck behind her and she half pitched herself back into the grave out of fear of being hit by it, but she was fine aside from having the shit scared out of her, so it must not have been as close as it'd sounded.

And then there was nothing. No lightning, no thunder, no storm. Just an eerie, dead quiet underscored by the soft noises of the tree burning out.

"Chucky...?" Aubrey whispered, sliding over Norris' dead body to reach for the doll.

It blinked at her mechanically, its mouth moving up and down as its voicebox announced, "Hi, I'm Chucky, and I'm your friend 'til the end. Hi-de-ho, ha ha ha!"

It looked different now. She guessed she hadn't noticed how much Chuck's soul had changed the doll until she was staring at what it'd looked like when Andy had first gotten it. Now it just looked fake. _Wrong_. Which meant...

"Move," Aubrey snarled, tugging Norris to the side so she could climb on top of the casket, leaning down to try and get a good look at Chuck's face—his _real_ face—reaching down to try and wipe it clean after tugging her glove off with the inside of her arm.

"Please tell me you're in there," she muttered.

Chuck's body lay still for a moment, unresponsive. His face, when she wiped it clear, looked better. Looked like a living man's face again, skin tight and elastic, normal color to it. At least that part of the spell had worked, no question about it, but he lay quiet and still.

Then, he gasped, eyes flying open and fixing on Aubrey's face. _Fuck_ , he'd forgotten what a kick in the ass that transition was. It had been faster than when he'd gone into the doll, but it fucking hurt like nothing had ever hurt before, nerve endings that had been dead suddenly flaring back to life. He tried to talk, broke into a coughing fit instead. He rolled over onto his side, or at least tried to. His body didn't want to cooperate, but he managed to turn his head so he wasn't coughing in Aubrey's face, at least. The way his mouth tasted, he was pretty sure his breath smelled like death.

He finally managed to gasp out a "Shit", after working his mouth enough to work up some spit to moisten his dry throat. Slowly, carefully, he pushed himself up until he was sitting, then turned his head and spat on Mike's face. The cop was still gasping out his last breaths, but that didn't mean they couldn't go ahead and start burying him. Just as soon as Chuck managed to boost himself out of the grave.

First, and pretty damn important at the moment… "Got any gum?"

Aubrey watched his corpse reanimate with quiet awe. Not that she hadn't expected it to work (she _had_ been hanging out with a fucking living doll for the past two weeks), but seeing it... Man, _seeing_ it.

"Nah, man. Sorry," Aubrey laughed. Jesus, it was weird hearing his voice come out of a real body. A good weird, though, because fuck if he wasn't even cuter than the shitty black and white mugshot they'd been flashing all over the news, even fresh out of the grave and back from the dead.

Of all the things Aubrey had done in her short life, most of which could be considered 'successful' by normal standards, none of it had really been anything she'd cared about, or felt particularly proud of. But this... this new trajectory her life had taken with Chucky? Well, she'd never been more pleased with herself in her entire fucking existence.

"Need a hand? I'm pretty over hanging out in open graves."

There were a lot of things Chuck needed. That stick of gum. Some fresh clothes. A shower. Getting out of the grave, that would do for a start. "Yeah, it's getting old." It had been old from the start, but there wasn't even anything to make it worth his while to stay there, anymore. He started heaving himself up with a groan, getting his feet underneath him in the casket until he was crouched there, at one of the more awkward angles he'd ever tried to sit in.

Chuck held out his hand to her, willing to take whatever help she'd offer. "Shit, I'm stiff." He guessed laying in a casket for two weeks would do that to your body. No complaining about what the human sacrifice hadn't fixed, he guessed, he could have come to with a bullet wound and started bleeding out all over again. Sore muscles was getting off light.

She'd already gotten the doll. All they'd have to do was get Mike into the casket, which they couldn't do while Chuck was still, technically, in it. Then, Chuck would take his turn and start burying the bastard. His arms could probably use the workout. They still had a lot to do before the night was over, but sore and stiff as his body was, it felt right again. No more plastic, no more doll parts, and if he played his cards right, he had a damn good chance of actually getting the girl. Chuck loved a happy ending.

Aubrey reached up and set the doll outside of the hole before moving as far to the side as she could to help Chucky out. Her arms felt like fucking cooked spaghetti and, at first, she couldn't really get a real grip on his arms. She forced her hands to flex as she silently promised her body that they were almost done.

"I dunno if the bottom of this thing's gonna open up as easy. Maybe we should just try and get him in through the top half," she told him, bracing her foot on the casket. They could _try_ to get it open, but she didn't want to waste too much effort on it. They only had so much time until daylight.

"...how's it feeling?"

"Better than dead." Chuck climbed out of the casket carefully, stretching his legs once he was finally free. Yeah, that was better. Not completely, but better. "Better than being in that." He nodded toward the doll, like there was any doubt that she'd know exactly what he was talking about. "Guess that means I'm pretty good, doesn't it?"

He swayed, once he was back on his feet. It felt like his legs should be a hell of a lot shorter, and that made it hard to keep his balance. He'd adjust. He'd adjusted to walking with shorter legs, getting used to ones that were the right size again should be easy. 

Aubrey was right about the bottom half of the casket. As still as Mike had gone, already, Chuck was pretty sure it wouldn't be hard to manhandle him into the casket feet first. He'd be like a limp ragdoll. "Come on, let's get him in. Grab his feet."

## EPILOGUE

"Aubrey!" Andy squealed, barreling towards her as soon as she was through the front door. She grunted quietly when he slammed into her, wrapping his arms around her legs. Fuck, that stung. Karen was right there, though, so she pretended her body wasn't wrecked from grave digging and scrubbed a hand over the back of Andy's head.

"Miss me, peanut?"

"Yeah!"

"Did you have a nice time at your dad's?" Karen asked with a small, sympathetic smile.

"It was alright. You know, the usual helicopter parent stuff," Aubrey said with a small shrug.

"Well, can you blame him?"

"Fair enough," she snorted.

"I'm sorry to rush out on you like this, but the flu's hitting our department pretty hard right now and we're really short staffed at the store," Karen told her, leaning in for a quick hug as she tugged her purse onto her shoulder.

"Nah, it's fine. We're just gonna watch _cartoons_ and order _pizza_."

"Yes, yes, yes! Cartoons!" Andy was already racing down the narrow hall to the living room. "Can we get pepperoni?" he shouted from the other room.

*

Aubrey jolted awake when she heard her name. Shit, she didn't even know when she'd fallen asleep. _Little Monsters_ was on the credits already, so it had probably been at least an hour. "What's up, peanut?" she asked groggily, not bothering to sit up.

"I think something's wrong. Chucky's not talking..." Andy said nervously.

She'd spent hours cleaning the doll up the night before so she could sneak it back to Andy after Karen left. Giving the doll up had been strange after everything that had happened, but what did she need with it now? It was just plastic and batteries and an annoying fucking voice box now.

"Nah, Chucky's fine," Aubrey muttered. She did sit up then, dragging her fingers through her hair as she woke up a little more.

"But he's not..." Andy was crying and staring at her with those big fucking eyes. "He's _different_ now."

"I like to be hugged!" the doll recited mechanically, as if to prove Andy's point. It only made him cry more, even as he gave in to the request and hugged the doll tightly.

"No—honey, no. Chucky's fine. He's just—uh. Chucky's at my place."

"...this isn't Chucky?" Andy asked, confused, as he held the doll out and looked it over carefully. "I wanna see _Chucky_ ," he sobbed.

"Okay! Okay okay," Aubrey rushed to assure, slipping her shoes on as she stood up. Jesus Christ, this kid. She guessed she couldn't blame him. What with his dad being dead and all, he probably had abandonment issues—but did he have to look so fucking _sad?_ "Hey, peanut. Come on, calm down. Everything's fine. We'll just go see Chucky, and then everything'll be okay, right?"

"Okay," Andy agreed stuffily, setting the doll down on the couch. He reached for Aubrey's hand and she sighed as she took it and led him to the front door.

They shared an elevator with one of the guys who lived on her floor, who was so stoned she wasn't even sure he knew they were there, but when the doors opened on the basement floor he gestured for them to go first and told Andy his Good Guy pajamas were "rad."

Aubrey wasn't sure if he was just being nice or if he was so high he'd decided he wanted PJs with feet on them.

"Here we go," she muttered, mostly to herself, as she dug her keys out and unlocked her front door. Chuck looked up from the kitchen counter, confused, when she came in so much earlier than she was supposed to be coming back. Andy raced past her and started calling his name, making a beeline for her couch. He moved pillows around, checked under it, then ran for her bedroom, still yelling for the doll.

"Fuck," Aubrey muttered. This was almost downright _depressing._ "Andy! Come on, dude. Out here."

"Where?" he asked, out of breath and excited, as he stampeded back into the main room. Aubrey nodded toward Chuck and Andy's face fell. "...that's not Chucky," he told her warily, looking for all the world like she'd betrayed him.

How the fuck did you explain something like this to a six year old?

Chucky stepped around from the bar and lowered himself onto one knee, smiling in that weird, creepy way he had that Aubrey had quickly learned she loved. "Aw, sure I am," he told Andy. "I'm your friend 'til the end, remember?"

"It _is_ you!" Andy gasped. There was no mistaking that voice, was there? Aubrey bit back a laugh when he hurled himself at Chuck, who looked like he had no idea what to do with being hugged by a small child now that he was himself again and couldn't default back to doll mode.

"It'll be our little secret, right, Andy?" Aubrey asked, leaning against the bar.

He nodded, smiling at Aubrey from under Chuck's chin. They had a lot of secrets. What was one more?


End file.
